Walked out. :(

I don't usually leave field trips in the middle of them, but yesterday I did.

We went to this horse barn and they were going to teach us all about horses and then give the kids rides.
We were also supposed to bring lunch because it was going to go from 10-2.  They said we were going to be in a barn most of the time.

My expectations were wrong.
1.  It was 40 degrees out and the barn was as cold as it was inside.
2.  We were not inside at all!
3. I was expecting a nice, heated barn. HA! It was an old run-down wooden barn.
4. I thought we would actually be learning about horses. HA AGAIN!
    We got there at 10 and had to sign in.  I thought the people who were leading the field trip would start around 10 or shortly after. Yah right!! They didn't even call everybody's attention until 10:30!!
In the meantime, the kids were supposed to look at the horses, all 4 of them!
Once they got started at 10:30, the only thing they did was take 3 kids into a stall AT A TIME to brush a horse.  Let me remind you, there were three other people working there, but they weren't doing anything.
Guess what the other kids did during this time? And there were about 30 kids here...they ran in circles! This head lady had nothing for them to do!

Luckily, my kids were the first ones in the pen to brush the horses and then they were done.
Soon the kids were running all over the lady's haystacks and she was beginning to get mad at them, so she opened up the gate to the pasture and said they could run around in there!

It was now about 11 and Courtney is freezing and bored out of her mind (she didn't want to come in the first place), Christian is bored and I don't want to give him freedom to run in the pasture because there was farm equipment in there, and Megan is actually running around and having fun.  I am bored and cold myself.  I'm starting to think that we are not getting much out of this field trip and start to consider leaving.

I didn't know what else this lady had planned, but if it was anything like brushing horses for half an hour, I was not going to stay.  They were going to ride horses too, but who knows what that would be like. Probably one by one and would take at least two hours!

About 11:15, I pulled Megan away from her running and talked to her. I asked her if she would mind that we left. I told her that her brother and sister were cold and bored and we weren't really learning anything anyway. We had been there for almost an hour and a half and all we have done is brushed a horse for about a minute.

I asked her if it would really bother her if she didn't get to ride a horse and she said no.  Thank you!

I went up to an assistant lady and told her we were going to head out because we had many other things to be doing.  She went and got the head lady and I kind of told her what was going on without making her feel bad.  She gave me the "well, this is my first field trip with so many kids, I need lots of time." ok, ok, but this just isn't working for us. I told her that private horse lessons would probably work a lot better for us and I got her phone number and walked away!

Who knows what happened for the next 3 hours or where everybody ate lunch, I didn't even see any bathrooms around!!

I am very glad we left, I have so many things swirling around in my head that I have to do now, I didn't want to waste my time at this horse farm learning about nothing!! I didn't go there so my kids could run around in a pasture!!

5.  I obviously did not dress my kids warm enough. When we left our house, I thought it was kind of nice out and THINKING we were going to be in a nice warm barn, I had the kids grab their spring jackets and then we all ran back in to get our winter coats.  I didn't bother to grab gloves or scarves! I should have! We were cold.

6.  Another reason I walked out is that during the day is "school time" and I want the kids to be constructively learning or at being productive. While I am not against having some time to run around, this was not part of the plan and I was not happy that these people were wasting my time.

7.  Good thing I didn't pay for this! This field trip was free, but a bunch of moms were going to go together and give her some money.  I didn't even offer. sorry! Improve your field trip and it may be worth some money to me and my kids.

Again, I felt bad that we left only an hour into it, but I was very glad we did!