July 2013 – Nina’s Boulder Ridge Field Trip

July 1st, and the motorcade arrived, complete with secret service agents and officials. See this image larger.

Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the Excited State! *Hm hm hmm-hmmmmmm hm hm-hm hm hm-hm hmmmmmm-hmmmmmm* See this image larger.

Yes, today is field trip day and we’ve arrived at Boulder Ridge Wild Animal Center! Here, pet a wallaby! See this image larger.

Pet this creepy lizard thing and then go running back to your seats, hurry! See this image larger.

This was my first real look at Nina’s water bottle and backpack that we had to pay for as part of her classroom fee. It was hilariously overpriced to begin with, but to have the first glance show a completely mangled bottle (albeit from Nina chewing on it) made it all the more hilarious. See this image larger.

I asked one of the other parents in the group to watch Nina temporarily, so that I could run over and buy her a souvenir sweatshirt. It was amazing how cold it was that day for July, very cold, and windy. I won “good daddy” points from the various moms on the field trip for doing this, as well as the teachers, Melissa (through the phone) and most importantly, from Nina. See this image larger.

One of the most nightmarish things I’ve seen in my life was this alligator. All it did to inspire this fear was submerse itself. The pond could not have been more than two to three feet deep, but this monster completely and silently disappeared about three inches under that water. (What I mean to say there is, the pond looked completely safe to the unwary.) See this image larger.

For some reason, this chicken wire didn’t seem like enough; maybe I’ve seen Jurassic Park a few too many times. See this image larger.

Next came the bus tour! See this image larger.

And I had the smartest, cutest little tour guide in the place! See this image larger.

Look at you, you big lug. Maybe they keep them so fat that they can’t move fast or climb or something, who knows. I’m not a alligatorologist. See this image larger.

My favorite little girl! See this image larger.

Posing for a quick pic on an elephant, and then lunch! See this image larger.

She didn’t really want to eat much of her sandwich, so I asked her to at least take a bite out of each half. So she did. It is always hard, during these field trips, to say good bye. The kids don’t want to go back to school or day care, you don’t really want to go back to work… there’s usually some tears involved. Nina at least made it to the bus before crying this time around, but it didn’t make it less hard. It was an awesome trip, though, we both had fun! 🙂 See this image larger.