Chica’s Mission Field Trip

Well, peeps.

It’s been a day.

And not a great one.

But more on all that yuckiness later; for now, I want to isolate a post about Chica’s 5th grade field trip to Mission San José that I was able to chaperone today. Because that part was lovely—woohoo!

I’ve waxed poetic in the past about the joys of chaperoning these field trips. It’s often a mental, physical and time commitment I don’t necessarily want to make (parents out there, I know you hear me on this), but it always—always—is worth it in the end.

To make school age memories with my kiddos.

To give them the comfort of knowing I’m participating in their outings and I’m there if they want me to be.

To witness them in a unique environment, with friends and teachers and all that entails.

And…to explore notable locations and landmarks within our area!

Over the years, there are so many places I’ve visited as a chaperone that I wouldn’t necessarily have put on my list, and today was definitely one such location.

I give you…Mission San José!

It’s an incredible 300-year-old church and surrounding property with a rich and complicated history of Spanish conquerors spreading Catholicism in a somewhat mutually beneficial relationship with Native Americans in the area.

I have no doubt that, upon further investigation, it would be quite a controversial history, but at the 5th grade level, they don’t dive too deep…though I hope they will at some point in the future.

It’s officially a State Park, and the tour guide for our particular class was quite informative and kept the kiddos both in line and fairly interested.

As field trip chaperoning duties go, it was certainly my easiest, to date.

First and foremost, by 5th grade, there’s very little fear of losing a kiddo or an abundance of poor behavior. Additionally, since this field trip was past downtown and far from the school, it was shorter, by necessity.

All things I was grateful for, as I had a wrench thrown in my day and was a bit distracted for half of the tour (more on that mañana).

But the best of the best about the day was watching my girl interact with her kind and playful friends away from the classroom.

It was a lovely thing to witness. :)



More tomorrow, peeps!

Until then…HAPPY. FREAKING. FRIDAY.

Over and out.