Alex's hike/camping trip

Since the first week of school, the teachers had been planning a hiking trip that included camping out over night for Alex's class. 

The letter home with information about the trip said the purpose of the trip was to teach the children to enjoy outdoors and to lead an active lifestyle. The rest of the letter included logistics such as where they were to meet, what time, what to bring, and when/where they would return and a packing list. 

Some of this was interesting to me because the first obvious thing I noticed was there was no permission slip to be signed. It was also interesting that on the day of the trip, you don't go to school at the normal start time of 8:00, you meet downtown at 9:00 to start the walk from there. And you carried all of your equipment yourself (clothing and warm layers, snack type food, water bottle, toiletries- lunch, dinner and breakfast was provided), you did have the option to bring your sleeping bag a day early and it would be driven out. The following day, they were to take a city bus back into town and arrive at the train station at 11:45 and they were dismissed from there. (It's strange they didn't have the same starting and ending point so in case kids rode their bikes they could get home the next day). 

I had to shop for a sleeping bag (probably could have borrowed one, but it was something we might need in the future anyway), and the only kind available here are camping style. I have a picture of Ben showing one off...

I have to say, I was worried all week what the temperature would be like because it can get pretty cold here in September and we just don't have the right clothes yet, or know what the right clothes to buy are, so I didn't want Alex to freeze. 

Last Thursday they got to go and the weather was so nice. I dropped Alex and Samuel off and they went with their classes. 

A group of kids waiting to start. 

Their walk was 15 Kilometers (about 9 miles) and they had a great time! Alex didn't end up having room to sleep in a tent outside, so he was in some building with four others, but he heard it hit pretty cold outside. They had hot dogs for lunch, hamburgers for dinner. Some swam (the water temp is about 60 degrees here and feels freezing!), and if you carried your own pole you could fish at this lake they hiked to too. He had a great time.