When I was a middle school teacher in the early 90's, I took my students on an average of one field trip per month, which was definitely more than most teachers. I typically take my three children on far more than one field trip per month. We don't usually go on many field trips in January and February, but we typically go on a LOT of field trips in April and May. Not counting the two days we went skiing in January and February, today was our fourth field trip in 2020. I had scheduled MANY field trips from the middle of March through the end of May that were all cancelled or postponed. The four field trips we've taken thus far this year have been to Gettysburg National Military Park, the Pennsylvania Military Museum, Reptiland, and a theatre production in Wilkes Barre plus aquarium in Scranton.
Today we went to Reptiland, which is only 8 minutes from our house. The kids can get into Reptiland once a year for free through our PBS membership. I paid for my admission plus paid $6 for three feeding sticks for the budgies and $1 for food for the emus. My friend, Cheri, joined us. I hadn't seen her since December so that was greatly appreciated. She hadn't been to Reptiland since she was a teenager, and she's in her early 60's. The weather forecast showed a 55% chance of thunderstorms this afternoon. Cheri and I were texting each other around noon trying to decide whether to postpone our trip to next week. Reptiland opened today after being closed for almost three months. I asked Ian and Nadia if they wanted to go today or reschedule the trip for next week. Ian is typically a child who wants to stay home. He's also by far the most indecisive of my three. When given a choice, he is most apt to say "I don't know." That didn't happen today. He immediately responded he wanted to go today. He didn't want to wait until next week. I guess after being home for almost three months (our last field trip was March 8), he was very ready to be out and about! It sprinkled for maybe 30 seconds during our visit there. We visited the dinosaurs first, then saw a 45 minute show on venomous reptiles that concluded with the kids touching a milk snake (which is not venomous but is sometimes confused with the copperhead that is venomous). After the show we fed the budgies. Usually Nadia wants to feed those birds for a VERY long time, but because we were wearing masks she didn't last as long. After we fed the emus and visited the Komodo dragon, we then walked around to see the various reptiles contained inside and outside. I have done better the last several days of taking at least one picture a day, but today I took far more than one picture. I'm not a fan of taking pictures with masks on because I love taking pictures of SMILES, but hopefully wearing masks will not be a requirement for years to come and this will be a record of what life was like in 2020.
While we were at Reptiland I did a quick search on my phone and was happy to learn that our county and two other counties near us will be moving to the green phase on June 12. Yahoo! I am very happy for all the business owners who will finally be allowed to reopen their businesses after being closed for three months. Now to find out if Knoebels will actually be allowed to open this summer as both counties they are located in are going green next Friday. I don't have any field trips scheduled for June or July, but two local field trips I'm hoping to take the kids to this month or next month are Packwood House and Eckley Miner's Village. We've never been to either site before. Both are located in counties that are going green next Friday so hopefully they will reopen sometime this month. We had planned to visit Wendy's family in Chicago in April and Yvonne's family in Maryland in May, but both trips were cancelled. The kids are also excited that entering the green phase means they can see some of their cousins next weekend. We are looking forward to celebrating Andrew's birthday when they come up to our house on the 13th!
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