Apparently the tradition started about 15 years ago. A dad of a kindergarten student decided to call around to other dads in the class to encourage them to make arrangements and \u201cgive their wives a day off.\u201d To the surprise of the kindergarten teachers at the time, there were more dads than moms on this field trip.<\/p>\n
Now this wasn\u2019t any ordinary field trip\u2026it was the field trip that gets talked about more than any other field trip in ACS\u2019 history. In last year\u2019s grade 12 commencement speech, Gideon Brandsma commented on this field trip\u2026and he wasn\u2019t the first valedictorian to do so.<\/p>\n
Now when this dad (who will remain nameless\u2026he\u2019s really shy and doesn\u2019t like his name thrown about) managed to convince the rest of the dads to join him for the day, little did he know the additional piece of tradition that he was layering onto: this was not only<\/strong> the famous kindergarten field trip\u2026this was now the field trip that \u201call the dads\u201d went on. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Fifteen years later, this trip remains to be a typical \u201cdad\u201d field trip and is still a favourite.<\/p>\n So you can imagine the discomfort I have felt over the years by making a seemingly benign decision to not attend the kindergarten field trip when my own kids were in kindergarten (quite a few years ago). And, although I knew it was a typical \u201cdad\u201d field trip, both times I was quite busy and Heidi was willing and able so it seemed to be just fine for her to be the one to go with the kids. After all, she had gone on all the other ones, so she knew the drill.<\/p>\n Well\u20268 years after Sofia was in kindergarten\u2014I finally got the chance.<\/p>\n Actually, this isn\u2019t entirely true\u2014Nancy Humphries and the kindergarten teachers have invited me every year. But this year was finally the year.<\/p>\n After instructions from Mrs. Humphries and a prayer from elementary principal, Roy van Eerden, we all packed ourselves onto three busses driven by our amazing ACS bus drivers. I found the back seat of one of them. I don\u2019t think I had ridden in a bus since my high school days so I forgot how the bumps are accentuated when you sit in the back seat.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n I met Lucas who was attending the trip with his oldest son. He told me how much he loved the school. I followed the crowd onto the busy sky train at the Surrey Centre and we rode (and stood as we rode) for what seemed like a long time until we arrived at the last stop on the train. During the ride, I talked to a bunch of dads and I was so impressed with how important it was that their kids (mostly daughters) were well cared for and attended to.<\/p>\n We walked down to the SeaBus terminal and awaited a SeaBus to take us to Lonsdale Quay. We shared a few stories with others and heard about how one girl had been separated from her mother\u2026a bit traumatic but all was good upon reuniting. The SeaBus was overcrowded, but short (although meeting James and his busy son was fun) and we were soon on the beautiful Lonsdale Quay and ready to enjoy a couple hours enjoying the pleasant weather and views. During lunch with the kindergarten teachers, we chatted about how this is such a great trip. Soon we were finding our way back to the SeaBus and heading for home.<\/p>\n Upon return arrival at the end of the day, I could totally see why this was a trip that gets imprinted into every child\u2019s long term memory. It\u2019s not only a chance to learn about different modes of transportation, it is also an experience shared by others in our lives\u2014especially with our dads.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n What a great trip and one truly representing who we are at ACS.<\/p>\n As we\u2019ve remarked many times over the years\u2014it takes a village, it takes a community, and it takes a dad calling his friends (free Starbucks card for anyone who actually reads this and accurately comments on who this person is<\/em>), it takes four great kindergarten teachers, it takes one of the teachers not letting me forget that I missed my own kids\u2019 trip, and it takes God\u2019s wonderful provision\u2026now I can truly say that I\u2019ve made it.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve gone on the amazing Transportation Field Trip.<\/p>\n [photoblocks id=3]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Apparently the tradition started about 15 years ago. A dad of a kindergarten student decided to call around to other dads in the class to encourage them to make arrangements and \u201cgive their wives a day off.\u201d To the surprise of the kindergarten teachers at the time, there were more dads than moms on this […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":3752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,14],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-3750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-elementary","category-parents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3750"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=3750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Bumps, Chats, and a Reunion<\/span><\/h2>\n
More Than Just Transportation<\/span><\/h2>\n