"What are you going to do if you see a ghost?" "Catch it!" says Luc' Nycia

Ah...the anticipated trip the pumpkin patch...

For a brief moment this morning, I didn't think we were going to go. I walked into school this morning at 7:05 to find out that the slips that were sent home to parents were not sufficient as permission slips. I didn't create them, I didn't question them, I just passed them out. So, I basically freaked out. I had 50 minutes to call 19 parents and have them come into school to sign a new permission slip. I was p.i.s.s.e.d. And upset that if my kids were so excited about going but couldn't because of this last minute change, I would feel awful. Anyway, THANKFULLY a sub at our school, a guardian of one of my students, and also a parent volunteer for our trip was in school at that time so she took a stack of papers and called parents, Ms. Ballard took another stack and I had the last section. We got all but 3 parents/guardians/relatives to come in and get a form signed by about 8:15. Another staff member at my school who also works in my room for an hour in the morning took the last three slips to those homes to have the parents sign them, they were all unable to get to school because of a lack of transportation. Basically, those people SAVED.MY.LIFE this morning. We didn't leave at the anticipated 8 a.m., but we were probably rolling out of school by 8:45, so not too bad!

Anyway, back to the trip...let's recap...we started the morning by playing on inflatables. getting their faces painted, and riding horses/ponies. Then we went for a ride on the hay wagon and stopped at a big pig pen in which my class literally went inside and chased the baby pig named "lightning." That sucker was fast! They loved it though and I took a video on my camera...is America's funniest home videos still on the air?!

We continued on our hayride and the next stop was to the edge of a lake where the kids fought over pieces of outlandishly moldy bread to feed to a few ducks in the water. Then we got on a boat, sort of looked like a pontoon from 1950 but bigger. We rode around the lake for awhile looking for the "12 foot alligator" while the kids each took a turn driving the boat. The farmer made a joke about throwing one of the kids in to feed the alligator and well, he picked the wrong kid to joke with because he started to cry, a lot. Lesson learned.

Back ashore we continued on the hayride over LOTS of tree roots and up a lane in which a couple of horses were walking. They finally moved over and we went around...suddenly we were stopping or trying to go or something and all of a sudden momentum is pulling us backwards. Several kids fell out of their seats, I slid down the bench about a foot and almost fell onto the floor myself...I don't know what or why that resulted, but it was kind of funny. It was a good thing we weren't on a typical hayride, we were in a make-shift one that was enclosed on the sides...for good reasons, obvs!

Anyway, we reached an area of multiple pastures containing either goats, sheep, cows, and a llama. Don't worry, the random horses in the lane caught up to us and were wondering around eating food out of kids hands or the bucket, whichever was easiest. I was holding the youngest/smallest student in my class who was deathly afraid of the horses and random goat walking around. Anytime they got close he would start to kick and do a scream-type of sound. Poor little guy. We all went into the llama pen and watched Ms. Ballard take a huge spit shower to the entire side of her face. I'm going to use my scheme to make a prediction and say the llama didn't care for her much.

Finally it was time for lunch which went smoothly after we hustled 38 kids through one single bathroom to wash their hands. The fun began after lunch....we rode the hay wagon again to the edge of the woods. We formed a line and went for a walk through the woods. Well, at first I didn't realize this was going to be a "haunted walk" but they had a few fake skeletons and ghosts hanging in the trees and all of the kids were chanting, "We not afraid, we not afraid." Well, that would quickly change. We started reading signs on our walk about witches and creepy/corny things. Finally to our right, back in the woods, was a person dressed in white with a mask on. The kids started to be like, "ehhh, ehhh..." I'm like just keep going...you're fine. No big deal. Ha. I thought we were fine once we got past that one...well sure enough on the left side there is another character in the woods. This one sent all the kids running for the nearest adult clinging, screaming, wailing "I want to go homeeeeeee, I want my mommaaaaaa, I want my grandmommaaaaaa." There was literally a kid wrapped around my leg, another one in my arms because they were bawling, three more on my left side holding onto my hand, arm, elbow, anything they could, and as many as could fit on my right side and hold onto anything despite my arm holding the kid on my hip. I also had a drawstring bag on my back which ended up with one side being taken off and wrapped around kids as they were fighting to get closest to me. Picture 38 kids ALL crying and screaming, "I want to go homeeeeee" Haha, ALL.I.COULD.DO.WAS.LAUGH. In fact, I think about it now and I still laugh out loud. There were kids crowded around every adult...the big, bad, tough kids and the wee little babies, ALL CRYING. So, hysterical! Somehow we keep the kids moving (which was semi-impossible since it was just a free walk through the woods, why on EARTH would they walk TOWARDS the scary people). At one point I pushed everyone away and jogged a few feet knowing they would follow but hoping we could attempt to catch up with the rest of the group. That idea was dangerous because they ran frantically for me and didn't care where they were stepping or what was on the ground in front of them. FINALLY, after shuffling past the third person in the woods who I motioned to NOT climb out of the ditch at us (I did not have spare pants or underwear for any of these children)...we looked back and watched them take off their costume. I was like, "ha ha, see that was funny guys!" They were like, "waaaa, waaa, ha.....ha.....yeaaaa" still skeptical but trying to humor me. We got back and for once it was pretty quiet...until they started to get brave again and they were all like, "I wasn't scared...no that didn't scare me!" I'm like yeah right, you were clawing the crap out of my arm, don't tell me you weren't scared! At one point, one of my little boys was in front of my group and I watched him turn around and high-tail it RIGHT into the middle of my group looking like he was swimming...he made up his mind he didn't want to be there and he was going to book it the other direction! I'm just mad that even if I could have physically GOTTEN to my camera, it would have been all over the place as I was pulled in every direction, but I could have had some fun with that video!!

Our last adventure was to go to the pumpkin "patch" and get our pumpkins. Basically it was a grassy pasture with pumpkins set out, but they each got to pick out their own pumpkin to take home which was ever so exciting! The bus ride home was quiet...most of them passed out in 5 minutes and NUMEROUS pumpkins fell off their laps and rolled to the front or the back of the bus once they were asleep.

Our adventure was over after SOOOO many pictures and sooooo many laughs! Not to mention all of those tears. Really, I'm not trying to be insensitive...but 38 kids ALL crying...and none of us really expected that to happen! Anyway, it was a great day, I'm so glad that almost all of my kids were able to go, and I'm excited tomorrow when we can review one of our vocabulary words of the week "frantic" and see if they can remember a time when they were frantic!! If I can figure out how, I'll try to post some pictures from our trip :) Linda...take your camera, you NEVER know what is going to happen at the pumpkin patch!! In all honesty, I CANNOT WAIT for next year!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM! :)