I know, I know... You were all checking this blog like crazy yesterday asking yourselves "where is Kate? Is she all right?" To answer your question, Kate is fine :) Kate was at *~*The Happiest Place On Earth*~* yesterday. No! Not Disney World, silly. Sea World. I spent the entire day at Sea World with my oldest daughter and every other second grader in the greater San Antonio area. It so totally rocked. Let me clarify: I have never been to Sea World before. Yeah, I know, I live a hop, skip, and a jump away. I just haven't ever really had the time, cash, or urge to go. When Amanda asked me a few weeks ago to accompany her, I declined. I blamed work but in reality I had a bad field trip experience last year (that you can read about here) and I didn't want a repeat performance. But Amanda had a plan and she slowly whittled away my reserve over the weekend stating repeatedly that I had went with Emilee last year and I had NEVER went with her on a field trip. Friday: I stood firm. Saturday: I wavered oh so slightly and mentioned in my defense that it was now to late to sign up because the forms were due the prior week. Saturday night: I laid in bed and wondered how much permanent damage I was doing to my daughter by neglecting her. I wondered how much time I had left before she decided that hanging out with her mom wasn't cool any more. I wondered if she would one day mention this field trip to a therapist and realize that this was when every thing started going wrong in her life. Sunday: I wrote a note to her teacher and practically begged to be allowed to go. I didn't get the discounted price of eight bucks since I waited so long but twenty bucks and several faxes later I was taking the day off work.

Now there is new (to me) thing that goes on for field trip now. When I was a kid, your parents just rode the bus with you to the field trip and it was fun (at least that one time my dad went with me to the museum it was). Parents can't ride the bus any more though, something about insurance. So instead, all the parents meet at the school and follow the bus. There are no less than thirty cars following the bus to the field trip destination. Now, I was prepared this time to follow the bus since I got lost going to the zoo last year. I got there early, got behind the bus, and patiently waited. This time I was going to be close to the bus not car number twenty fucking five. I did get temporarily seperated by a light this time, but followed the signs to Sea World and managed to find it :)
So there I am, paired with three other kids and three other parents off to explore the ocean type habitats of all the animals housed at Sea World. Wow, it was so cool that I am going to have to post pictures because I took something like two hundred of them. We went every where and I am not going to bore you with every little detail but my favorite part was feeding the dolphins. Oh wow. I was able to check off one of the things I absolutely HAD to do in my life and I was so excited. I probably freaked the other parents out, but I don't care because it was so awesome for me. I think that a lot of the other parents were just there to spend the day with their kids in an obligatory kind of way. Not me.. ok, besides that whole feeling like I was screwing up her life thing. I was having just as much if not more fun that my kid! Oh, it was awesome. So completely cool. We are so going back!