French Students Eat At Gourmandise.

Some school field trips are worth calling in "late" for.

You know, the type of field trips that start your day with French pastries and bagel sandwiches at Gourmandise.

It's not too shabby when the head chef goes to serve you your order of pastries and demands, in his heavy French accent I might add, "Are you a student?  Order in French!"  He was having much too much fun in harassing the timid students in their rudimentary use of the French language.  I was laughing too much about his accusation that I was a student.

Come on now.  Wrinkles and all?

No French for me, thanks.  Or I'm sorry? Because those pastries were totally worth it.

The time with Jayme was too.

When I was in Jr. High and taking a foriegn language the French students took a field trip to the illustrious La Caille every year.  The Spanish students took a field trip to the taco stand down on Magna main.

I was a Spanish student.  

And I considered it a win.

Gourmandise would have made me change my mind.

2nd Grade Field Trip to Red Butte Gardens.

It's been crazytown business around our house, and I'm sure you can all relate to that.

Plus, exhaustion hit me.  You know when you're running and going and then suddenly you get a break and you stop for a minute?  And in that minute it all catches up to you and you feel like sleeping for four solid days?

That's where I just came back from.

That and a bunch of other stuff that was going on in between all my napping.

I need to get caught up on our goings on.

Last week I signed up to go on Cali's field trip to Red Butte Gardens up at the University of Utah.  I was assigned to watch over Cali and three of her classmates.

Tell you what, I could never be a 2nd grade teacher.  Hats off to those people who not only do it, but do it well.

The kids learned about flower parts and about pollination.

They learned about different kinds of seeds and even got to pull some lima bean seeds apart to see the different parts inside as the plant begins to sprout.

They talked about different ecosystems.

And I related having just finished my conservation biology class.

There is a flower there that smells like chocolate.  And a plant that smells like lemons.

I need these for my yard.

Need.

After Red Butte Garden we went to a park for lunch.

Where we realized Cali's friend had forgotten his lunch so we pulled him over next to us and split up our food.

And I watched as other kids caught on and brought him parts of their lunch.

In the end he had more food than he could eat and no one was hungry.

It made my heart smile to watch these kids looking out for each other.

(And then turning around and fighting over the swings...)

We also got to see a truck bring in a tree for planting at the park.

Tell you what, by the time I got home from the field trip I was dragging.

I laid down and took a solid hour nap.

But how grateful I am for the day I got to spend with Cali.  To see her excited about the beauty of the world around us, to see her helping someone in need, to see her laughing and playing with her classmates.

That girl is a whirlwind that leaves me so tired, but man alive I love her to the moon and back.