Whale Watching Field Trip

My kids go to the best school ever!  The school hosts a number of field trips every  year. All of them are fabulous!

The field trip protocol is this:  You sign up, pay the fee (which is the school group price plus a few dollars more and the extra goes to a playground supply fund), you transport your children to and from the field trip, and you chaperon your children too. They also encourage you to bring friends, especially friends who might be good recruits. There are no buses, no asking parents to volunteer as chaperons, it's just set up so that if your child attends the field trip, so do you. Easy as that!

Since I'm a stay-at-home mom, this field trip thing totally works for me. And, I get in on the fun! Gotta love that!

Yesterday, we went on a Whale Watching Excursion with the school. We went in May also. It was fun then, and this trip was fun too!

I brought recruitable friends! My friend Kristin and her two little girls came with us, in fact, she drove. I guess that means I went with her.  It was great to have our good friends along with us because the downside of these field trips is that each child is with their family and the families tend to stick together and not mingle much. I don't know very many of the students and families well. It was great to share this day with our awesome friends! The four girls really enjoyed their outing together. I think being with friends adds a lot of value to the experience. Libby's favorite Kindergarten friend went too. She had her family and they brought friends too.  Of course, Gracie knew everyone on the boat by name. She probably knew the full price passengers too, she's overly social like that.

The boat ride was great! We left from the dock right on time and returned promptly too. Nobody puked! I consider that a great success!

We saw seals or sea lions, I'm not sure which even though the captain announced what we were viewing and what the differences are. I still forgot.

We saw a very large pod of common dolphins. That's actually the name of that kind of dolphin, "common dolphin".  There were hundreds of them!  The captain again made announcements and described life as a dolphin. There was a mother and baby pair that swam close to the boat. So cute!  All of the dolphins were swimming and leaping in and out of the water, they were really neat to see!  Especially such a large group of them.

No whales were sighted. I am glad.  Sure, I like these whale watching trips, but I am secretly afraid of whales. They are huge! The boat we're in isn't huge. I'm terrified that the whales will bump the boat from the bottom and put all of the passengers out to sea. I'm pretty sure that I am very yummy.

We came upon another pod of dolphins and the captain slowed down the boat, he was very excited. Instead of his scripted announcement, his voice was exuberant. We saw Pacific White Sided Dolphins. The captain said it was a rare treat to see them.

After we docked, the kids were hungry and antsy. I'm not sure which was worse, but my friend and I decided to let them play on the beach before we fed them. That way, we can lure them off of the beach to eat, otherwise they'll want to play all day and the whining will be nonstop. It's a good trick, they'll leave playtime if you offer them food and they are hungry.

Once they were on the beach, they completely forgot about being hungry. They played for two hours! The same children who were freezing cold on the boat, they all wore two jackets each, and three of them wore winter hats, were now in swimsuits and dashing in and out of the waves. They built sandcastles, chased seagulls, looked for seashells and had a grand time.

The clouds were weird and strange and interesting and beautiful! There was a curved break in the clouds that looked like a tornado in the photos.

Finally, at 3pm they were ready for lunch. We walked down the end of the pier to Ruby's and we ate well. It was delicious! The kids ate plenty (except one kid). The portions were generous. My friend picked up the tab and the tip. She's an awesome friend! I'm keeping her!

We stopped in the beach bathroom before hitting the road for home. Gracie came out of the stall and said "Mom! Someone forgot their phone!" She was very concerned. We asked around a bit but nobody claimed it and then I looked and it had two missed calls in the last few minutes.  I called that number back and said "We just found this phone" and the lady on the other end was very excited! She said to stay at the bathroom and she'd be right back. I told her we would be right next to the bathroom on the playground. We waited a while and just when we were starting to wonder how far away this lady had gotten, she showed up. She had already driven away. She was very happy to get her phone back, and she recognized Gracie from the excursion! Didn't I tell you Gracie knows everyone? She said her daughter goes to the same school. Then she handed Gracie a dollar bill and said she wanted to show her appreciation by giving her a reward and that's all that she had. We thanked her kindly, but Gracie was rewarded plenty just by seeing this lost phone returned and the lady was obviously happy to have it back in her hands. Gracie also didn't know anything about rewards for finding lost things. The lady hopped back in her vehicle and off she went.

Gracie looked at the folded dollar in her hand, unfolded it and found that there were two $20 bills. What!!! Whoa!

Gracie's little friend was jealous that Gracie got cash and she didn't, so Gracie gave her one. I thought that was just fine since it was an accidental finding and no matter which one of us had gone in the stall where the phone was, we would have still done our best to return it.  Both of the girls understood that it was something very important to someone and it needed to be returned. They both have big hearts. So, sharing the reward was a good idea and I'm glad they thought of that on their own.  I don't know if either one of them realizes that $20 is more than $1. Their mommies are credit card swipers.

We ended up leaving Newport Beach just at the right time to be part of the five o'clock traffic on the 91. It was slow going and my friend was driving, so I just relaxed and enjoyed the visit.

Could the day have been better? No. Not possible. It was so great! A day with my girls, friends, dolphins, beautiful weather, good food, a good deed, and I didn't have the stress of driving in heavy traffic! It was amazing!