This was my first field trip with either one of my girls. I have been a working mom ever since KA was 18 months old. AJ has known nothing but me working. Mr. A has been the field trip dad for most of the small trips. This however was a big trip that involved an overnight stay. I decided I had not seen much of the NC coast so it would be something both AJ and I would enjoy together. I was to chaperone her and a friend of hers.
Before we even started we had two things against us: 1) the heat and 2) my health. The day before I found out that I had gall stones and that I would probably need my gall bladder out soon. I woke up nauseous and anxious about whether I was doing the smart thing being 4 hours away from home. I talked with Mr. A and he said that he had been praying for me and felt that I would be fine. I agreed to go only to deal with the other problem...the extreme heat. We had been having a heat wave in NC for the last week with temperatures in the upper 90s, low 100s. The coast was suppose to be lower but unfortunately it wasn't. We pressed on. We had two days to see tons of things.
The first place we went was Festival Park in Manteo, NC which houses a coastal maritime museum, fossil digs, colony persons and a ship that the kids could climb on. We were lucky enough to be the first group to hang out in the museum before heading outside to do our other adventures. The kids loved the area and the things to do, it was just so hot! We really couldn't enjoy it to its fullest with it being so hot.
The tour guide decided we would make a change in our itinerary and do an indoor activity next vs. an outdoor activity. Hallelujah! We went to the NC aquarium which was pretty nice. Let me stop here and say that I am a snob when it comes to certain attractions. Growing up in So. California, I had virtually every possible attraction around me -the beach, Disneyland, SD Zoo, Sea World, plus some awesome aquariums including Birch Aquarium in San Diego. This was no Birch, but did have some cool things to do and see. We had over an hour to look around. After 20 minutes, my little group was done. So we visited the gift shop and hung around the shark tooth pit looking for shark teeth and fossils.
After the aquarium, we headed to the hotel to get cleaned up and get ready for dinner and the Lost Colony play. The hotel was not 5 star by any means, but it was located right on the beach with its own private entrance. The bummer part is we weren't allowed to let the kids or us in the water. This was hard as the kids just wanted to have a little fun. Trying to keep my two out of the ocean was almost impossible. After dinner we headed off the the Lost Colony. This by far was my favorite thing. It was an outdoor theater with some amazing actors/singers. The costumes were amazing! The only downer was the heat...it was still in the upper 80's at 8:30 at night. Unfortunately one of the teachers collapsed at the play and was taking by ambulance for dehydration/exhaustion. Like I said, it was hot! We also had been going since 6:00 am and it was close to 11 pm. We were all exhausted including the kids.
The next day wasn't much better. It was a little cooler, but we started off almost as early as the day before. Breakfast was served at 6:30. We had to be on the bus by 8 am to head to the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. It was a 90 minute drive from our hotel down so most of the adults took cat naps on the drive down. Thank God for charter buses! Cape Hatteras was beautiful! It is the tallest lighthouse in the nation. Unfortunately, I wasn't willing to chance my health walking up the stairs, however, I will one day. I hear the view is amazing! AJ's friend went to the top and had a blast. AJ stuck close to me that day...she wasn't feeling so great due to the heat which we found out at the next stop.
The next stop was Jockey's Ridge for lunch and running around on one of the largest sand dunes. After we had finished lunch we started heading out to the dunes when AJ looked at me and said her stomach hurt. I told her to get in the shade and with that lunch made it's second appearance. Needless to say we never saw Jockey's Ridge. She and I headed to the bathroom then back to the buses. Another chaperone was gracious enough to take my other student with them to the dunes. AJ and I sat in the air conditioning while she cooled down. Most of the groups came back to the buses pretty quick as it was still pretty warm and people were slowing down.
Our last stop was The Wright Brothers Memorial. I had been looking forward to seeing this as I took aeronautics classes in High School and I have always loved flying. Unfortunately we didn't get long there as we were needing to get on the road. It was pretty amazing to see what they did with just a glider. I wish Mr. A was there as he is a big aeronautics person too. He would have really enjoy it with me.
Finally we were on our way home after this whirl wind trip to the coast. While I enjoyed it, I would have like to see some of these things a my own pace. Some places I could have done with shorter amounts of time and others longer. I also missed having Mr. A and KA with us. It just didn't seem the same without them. However I did enjoy having some one on one time with AJ. We really haven't had any events like this before so this was a lot of fun!
Praise God, I did not have any flare ups and did great! I had a lot of people praying which was awesome!
1 comment:
oooh, sorry about the gallbladder. had to go copy your mom, huh?? HA HA. Seriously..I had to have mine out after baby #1. I was miserable!! My recover was just about a week though. love ya!
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