Whirlwind Tour and Emotions

I just flew in from the coast and man, are my arms tired! *groan* (That's for you, B.)

OK, so I didn't fly. I spent way too much time in a charter bus. Way worse. Especially with an overly-flatulent adolescent named Monty. Don't ask!

I didn't knit nearly as much as I thought I would be able to, but managed to complete about 1/2 of one sock on the way to Gettysburg. Two friends that live near there met me (and my 85 kids!) for dinner after we finished the battlefield tour. (Thanks, Buddy B, for indulging me!) It was great to see them, and they were great sports about eating dinner with us.

Washington, DC was fabulous, however. It wiped out the negative aspects of the bus ride. *My kids* (for in many ways they are mine after a year of nurturing them along) were funny and for the most part very good. They received compliments about how well-behaved they were as a large group. We found the names of family members on the Vietnam Wall for some of them.

Here is a group of my kids at Mount Vernon, totally unaware that I am snapping their photo!

My two peeps who had the honor of performing the Wreath Laying Ceremony at The Tomb of the Unknown Solidiers performed beautifully and with so much poise that I couldn't help but cry as I watched and took photos. The young lady came into seventh grade so unsure of how her year would be, and look at her! (Sorry, you only get the back.) We had a gorgeous wreath, as you can see.

See all of those orange shirts? Our tracking system. It worked fabulously! On day two the shirts were safety (neon) green. I was standing at the top of the Lincoln Memorial looking down when I took this, and could see all of my Bus One kids (41 kids) that had already gone down from the memorial.

This morning, at the ungodly hour of 5:40, we pulled up in front of school to unload the two buses of very tired children, some of whom had never been out of the state of Ohio. "I'll see you all in August," I announced over the bus PA system. "Hey, I didn't flunk! None of us did or we wouldn't have gone on the trip!" one of the more awake boys called out. "You're right. You're all going to 8th grade. And after 17 years in seventh grade myself, it's been decided I am going there too," I told the busload. "YAY!!! Alright! Yes! Woohoo! Awesome! Dude!" I heard back.

Again with the tears. I'm blaming it on lack of sleep.