Down in the Dumps

Yesterday I was invited to go with Zach's class on their first field trip. They were visiting the "recycling center".... aka the landfill.... aka the dump. Ten years ago, if someone had told me I would be excited about such an outing I would have thought they were nuts, but here I was looking forward to visiting the dump. All because my son was excited.

So off I went, bags full of recyclables in my car. The city employees took us around to each bin and told us which recyclables went where. Slowly but surely we made our rounds...plastics, aluminium, paper, glass, etc. They took us to where cars back up and dump off their junk. They showed us the large pile of mulch made from the limbs collected in the city. (Which by the way was the most disgusting smell ever! Who would have thought mulch could smell so bad?) And then for the grand finale we drove down to where the large pit where the city landfill was. It was pretty funny because all of the kids kept asking if we were in the desert. And truthfully, it was pretty impressive.

Zach really enjoyed seeing it all, as did the rest of the kids. I think mainly they were just glad to get to ride a bus and get out of the classroom. Here is a picture of his putting some newspaper in one of the bins.

Then yesterday afternoon, Zach went and got his shots. He was not happy about them, but he handled it pretty well. Gary had gotten a flu shot at his office that morning because he had already heard of a case of flu in town. Then they both insisted that Mommy needed a shot too. I do not do needles! But reluctantly, after Zach insisted he would hold my hand, I went and had the flu shot done. The nurse was so good I didn't even feel it, so I went ahead and let her give me a tetanus shot too since I hadn't had one since I was twelve. We are a very well immunized family now!