I'm Baaaaacccck

Honestly, I've been back since Monday night. What's that, you were waiting for tales from the road? I know, feel free to tell me how badly I suck.

It was a whirl whind trip that left me completely exhausted. Too many long days, late nights, emotional kids and pizza. I fucking hate pizza. I think we ate pizza at 1:00am for three days in a row because it was all that was open late at night.

So let's get the important stuff out of the way first.

I shopped. Bought these little gems -

The other chaperones were trying to figure out how I could buy two pairs of shoes when I was only in the mall for 20 minutes. They're obviously amateurs. Josh, the ED pulled one of the boxes out of the bag and I thought we were going to have to call 911 when he saw the price on the box. His face turned pale and he looked at me, completely horrified and said, "Does my wife spend this much on her shoes?" He then noticed I had two boxes in the bag I was carrying and I think he may have stopped breathing for several seconds. Poor guy has no idea. Reason #362 to never get married again....never having to justify shoe expenditures to a male.

So onto the kids. Please note I'm not calling them little fuckers. I have so many stories to tell about how wonderful these guys were. They shocked the shit out of me, and that's not an easy thing to do. It helped that they were, for the most part, completely scared of me. That's not an assumption on my part, they actually told me so. Out of 38 kids on the trip we had to discipline two of them for drinking. We never had to wait for anyone, we did not have to go looking for stray kids, there were no arguments, tantrums or drama queens. As I type all of this I realize just how incredibly damn lucky we were. During the two days of competition some of the kids had to be up at 5:00am to make their 7am start time. We did not have to wake up ANY of the kids. They were up, ready and on their way exactly when they needed to be.

The whole trip renewed my faith in teens. After the hellish time I've had with my own, it was heartening to know that kids do indeed have the ability to passionately care about something besides video games and ipods.

I'll be back with a few stories. Just wanted to let everyone know I'm alive and kicking - in really hot shoes.

One last thing - Daffy. Ducky girl we're with you in spirit. Someday you'll be able to remember your sister with a smile rather than tears. It will take a long time, but it will happen. The memories you have will keep her alive forever. It's little consolation, I know. Know that you're loved, and thought of often.