Here Everything's Better

       Today was Lanie's HEB field trip and I will admit, I was a tinge excited.  I've done the theatre field trips, the zoo trips and the Rodeo field trip but I've never had a chance to see the behind-the-scenes at the grocery store field trip.  This one was a bit last minute and Lanie didn't know why her class was going.  Were they studying farms? Were they studying food groups?  Were they studying consumerism?  Lanie didn't have an answer to these questions.  She really just cared that she was going to school on a non-school day for her (Tues and Thurs) and riding a bus.  And like a mom who doesn't have a job to run to and no little kiddies at home, I happily followed the LSA bus all the way there and got out just in time to snap a picture of Lanie carefully leaving the Big Bus.

        When I saw the jovial tour guide, Miss Sherry with a Tinker Bell lanyard around her neck, I had a feeling she may have been a preschool teacher at one point in her career, or maybe a really good grandma.  She was totally ready for this group of 25 four-year-olds and the chatty chaperone moms who really go on field trips for some friend-time and because, like me, they were hoping for some free samples.

Sherry moved the kids around the store stopping to smell lemons and limes, take a shot of fresh-squeezed orange juice, watch how tortillas are made, and my favorite and theirs, meet the deli and meat ladies who loved, absolutely loved showing off the lobsters.  The kids gathered around the glass and ooh'ed and ahh'ed at Fred and Larry Lobster.  Lanie turned to me and said, "Mom! They are Alive!!"






Miss Sherry was totally thrilled that she could bring the kids back in the storeroom area to hop aboard a real HEB truck that had just been unloaded so we could take a class picture.  I think I would have preferred a class pic back over by the lobsters, but the kids seemed impressed enough to be in a truck but wondered why they weren't moving. 

       The big finale was letting the kids walk through the inside of a refrigerator to see stacks of milk, cream and butter.  For my child who can't stand any kind of severe weather, be it hot or cold, she threw her hands in her shirt and promptly wanted to leave.  We walked around to the patron side where milk is sold, and the connection was made that they had been on the Other Side. Very cool.  (Literally).

 When it was all over, Sherry was nice enough to send home an HEB coloring book, a pencil, stickers, HEB bucks, a crown, and an apple.  Wasn't that so thoughtful? I wanted to hug Miss Sherry right then and there for making the trip so fun for the kids. 

I still don't know why the grocery store field trip was part of the curriculum, but it was a nice change of pace.  I didn't end up with a lot of samples like I wanted, instead all the food smells made my churning stomach, churn more.  But I did sneak 3 shot-glasses full of the best squeezed orange juice ever.   Thumbs up to HEB. 

Butterflies and Bubbles  (Ella has the bubble part, I think Lanie's popped)