If this is chaperoning... sign me up!

About a month ago, I attended the high school's "Back to School" night,

a night for the parents to follow their student's schedules 

and a chance to meet their teachers.

I enjoy going to these.

They help me put a face to the teacher's names

and give me a small glimpse into the personalities that will be interacting with my children for the entire school year.

So when Quincy comes home and tells me that Mr. Adams said "this" or Mr. Chapman said "that"

I have a better idea of where it's coming from and how it came across. 

So, there I was listening to Quincy and Natalie's art teacher talk about his plans/
goals for the year

when he mentioned that they would need chaperons for an upcoming field trip to DC.

Quincy had already brought home a note about the trip, so I knew that their itinerary included a couple of items that were on my to do list.

Such as the water taxi to the National Harbor

and another trip to the Newseum where I had seen these shirts.

(Guess what I bought... might there be a give away in my blogging future?)

So I signed myself right up... I had always wanted to go check out this giant in the sand.

But what that meant was that I would find myself in charge of TEN teenagers that I don't know!

 The teens that I know and love and are familiar with are one thing,

but these kids were unknown entities.

Would they behave?

Would they get lost?

Would they listen to me at all?

I needn't have worried.

First of all, the cool thing about high school field trips as opposed to elementary school trips 

is that you give them general guidelines and a time to meet you and then you get to just let them go.

And while they are off doing... whatever...

you get to wander around the museums and the shops and chat with the other chaperons.

And as it turned out, I had a pretty good group of kids.

They behaved, they showed up on time, no one got lost...

To top it off...

this was the art/ photography field trip

so I got to drag along my big old camera bag and no one thought that was remotely strange.

We had a great time 

and

I got a day on the town with some fun people.

Now I've just got to figure out how to finagle a chaperon slot for the NY field trip.

Broadway shows, museums, hotel... all free for the chaperon!

Sign me up!