A few of our favorite things...fieldtrippin' at Dagerath Academy

First, let me start this post by correcting the previous post...after consulting a field guide (thanks, Gina for this great gift!!) we found that the lizard from yesterday morning was NOT a horned toad, but in fact was a "Desert Spiked Lizard". Ok, that's done. Now on to more fun, less reptilian things...

I saw on Money Saving Mom, my favorite website, that yesterday was $1 scoop day at Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream. If you brought in an item for the food bank, you got a scoop for $1. Wow! Cheap Ice Cream. AND there's a B&Js on the river near where Michael works. So, we made a plan for some fun. Lunch w/ daddy at work followed by a walk down the river to cheap ice cream. The boys LOVE the taco salad at the cafeteria at Michael's work, but unfortunately it was Eggplant parmesean on the menu. Gulp! That sounded pretty gross to all involved, but cheeseburgers did the job just fine. Josiah got a tuna and turkey sandwich. It's really funny. Every time we go to lunch w/ Michael at the cafeteria, Josiah gets a sandwich. These sandwiches aren't anything special. Just meat and stuff on regular bread. But I guess the thrill of eating at dad's work trumps the ordinary-ness of a tuna sandwich!

So after lunch at Michael's we went with a bagful of non-perishables in hand and headed down to the river to find Ben and Jerry's. Problem was I didn't know for sure where it was. I could see it in my head, just didn't know where to place it on the river. "It's upstairs on the river near a road" I think was my directions to Michael. The only thing is those ever so vague descriptions match about 100 places on the river! So I hunted in the recesses of my memory for better directions. "It's right by the 'Life is Good' store." Nothing. Then it clicked" Oh, and near a Starbucks!" I figured my mocha-loving man would know exactly THAT location. But I was wrong. See, since we've lived in SA, Michael decided he was wasting too much cash and calories on that addiction, so he quit. (How do you do that? Just make up your mind and QUIT?? Man, if I could do that I would be a much healthier, happier, skinnier mama! Still working on that one!) So, needless to say, he didn't know where we were going either. And the bag of food kept getting heavier and heavier and passed around from boy to boy. Jeremy finally ended up the designated food courier. He and I both kept saying "I think it's right around this turn". And finally, we were right. I made a joke when we were getting close "Wouldn't it be funny if they weren't even doing the promotion?" but my heart sank when we got to B&Js and there was no sign announcing it and no people in line. Thankfully, though, when we asked the guy working he said they were doing it, just didn't have many people who knew about it since it was a "touristy" B&Js. I was also very shocked to see that ice cream there costs $4.55/scoop!! Who pays that?? So I was really feeling like a MoneySaving Mom when we walked out after getting 6 scoops for just over $6!

Here's the guys at B&Js!

And as life goes, there's always something that goes differently than the way it was scripted. Since it took us so long to get there, we didn't have time to eat our ice cream at B&Js, so we decided to walk back while we were eating ice cream. Michael joked "Can you guys eat ice cream AND walk?" The boys answered back "Sure, dad, no problem", a little insulted that he had even asked. The joke turned not-so-funny as we were walking back down the river. You have to pretty much walk single file down parts of the river so that you don't fall in or push someone else in. We were walking at a steady pace when all of a sudden I hear Josiah wail and look back and he's IN the river! There was a little cut out place where there was a pond-type area, so it wasn't as far in as in other parts of the river. But he was knee deep in water with one shoe (thankfully a croc!) floating around. We rescued the croc (and I even rescued his ice cream, which had fallen, but was in a cup and DIDN'T land face down!) and tried to console a balling Josiah. Poor guy! I asked him if I could take his picture for the blog. He looked at me and said "No". Well, actually it was more like "Noooohoooohoooo" because he was still sobbing at the time. But it did get a little smile out of him, which REALLY was my motivation. (However, truth be told, if he had said "yes" you'd be looking at a picture of his wet self right now!) So after Michael went and got some napkins from a restaurant, we dried Josiah off, as much as we could and headed toward the car. And just, like Josiah, a few minutes later he's dancing and spinning around and laughing, just like nothing happened. Man, I love that boy!!

Thankfully, the "go bag" was in the car. A couple of years ago I read on a website that it's prudent to keep a bag with a change of clothes for everyone in the car in the event that you need to evacuate your home in an emergency. Thankfully, we've never had to make an emergency evacuation, but many many times the "go bag" has gotten us out of jams when clothes have gotten messy for one reason or another. Today, it kept us from having to get the "wet jeans from river water on sweaty boy" scent on the seats of our car. Let me tell you, THAT smell will never be a cologne!! So, my mommy tip for the day....well, of course, get cheap ice cream when you can, but also, get a "go bag"!

It was another fun field trip for the students at Dagerath Academy! Maybe I should pull the jeans out of the wash and scrape them for microscope slides! Nah, I don't want to know what's in that river water!!

CAN you eat ice cream and walk at the same time????

Michael and the boys at Michael's office. Again, my photographic prowess (and lack thereof) rears its ugly head! The point of the pic is to notice how nice the area around Michael's office is.