School Zoo Trip

Yesterday my Mr9 had a school excursion to the Zoo.  I had volunteered to tag along as a parent helper.  The teachers had decided this time that since they had ample parent helpers (for a change) that they would split each of their 3 classes into groups of 4 children and allocate 1 parent/teacher per group.  My group contained my son and 3 other young boys.  Somehow though, my group joined with another group and I ended up spending 90% of my time dealing with 8 boys - boys that became very boisterous together (4 of them did anyway) and another parent, a dad who is way too laid back for his own good.  The dad is the father of one of my son's best friends.  He has his hands full at home but quite honestly he has no control over his kids and was very out of his depth yesterday as he just didn't control these kids.  It made for a very long day!  I seemed to spend most of my time trying to get a few of them to move along and get off the gardens, get off fences etc etc etc.  We didn't end up getting to see everything but I think the kids were happy nonetheless.  My son said he had a good day but wished that we had just been on our own with our group.
School excursions, lol you just gotta love them!  One of the other mums said my thoughts exactly, she said to me...."I always wonder why I put myself in these situations and keep telling myself never again,,,,,,but there is always a next time"  lol and that is so true.  I know that next time an excursion crops up, I will again volunteer, later to wonder what I was thinking!!!

Here are some pictures of our day, Mr9 took his camera too so this is a mix of his and mine.

Mr9 enjoying his juice

Don't you just love Pandas!!!

The group I had to keep contained lol,,,amazingly none of them ended up in a cage!!

As we were getting ready to leave we noticed Funi the panda high up in a tree

 

 

I adore Orangutans!!!

Mr9 loved the Meerkats

...and the giraffes

How the heck did he manage to get such a good picture of the panda on his little 2MP camera??? lol

I think I may have a future "nature photographer" on my hands lol

He took this one for me because I always say how the kids like to just bury their heads in the sand and pretend its not bed time lol He said I know its not sand but he still buried his head!!

This sea lion was just so cute

the Pygmy Hippo

and part of his class at the end of the day (the teacher wanted a group shot lol)  Mr9 wasn't happy that he couldn't fit everyone in,,,,,but I think the teacher is planning on printing a photo for everyone so I'm sure he will be happy when he sees it.