Field Trip a Success

Last Friday, February, 24, forty-nine students, parents and grandparents drove an hour and twenty minutes to Simi Valley to attend the Medal of Honor speaker series at the Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.  Four Medal of Honor recipients shared their stories and spoke to the 900 students from around Southern California for almost an hour and a half.  They shared their hearts with us and we were all touched and were given several principles for life success and how to face our own battles ahead with courage and conviction.  I'll just let you listen to the program yourself to hear it all since it is now available as an archived video here:  Watch Now

We had so many blessings that day worth mentioning, besides reserved parking behind Air Force One!  In the video you'll see at 1:39:40 the only tweeted question that they took (due to time constraints) out of 900 kids, came from our own group's Louise Naumann who is a 6th grader.  So proud of Louise's very thoughtful questioning and she had two more that she was ready to ask had she made it to the front of the in-person line at the mic!  She was so patient waiting and it got cut-off right before her to take the 'online' question so imagine her surprise!  I'll update this blog later with some photos -- having technical difficulties at the moment.

We also were so surprised when our docent, Bill, who was assigned to us from 9:30-2pm managed to get ALL of our group in.  Originally we were permitted 25 students and 2 chaperones.  I appealed for 7 more kids, but the Foundation insisted only 2 adults. So we were all prepared for this.  Once there, my other chaperone asked Bill if he'd allow the rest of our families.  When he asked how many I figured he might let the five adults standing there in, but surely not the 10 others which were mixed with parents and young siblings.  Well he said sure, let all fifteen in and then I called back two grandparents who had already gone off to the museum to purchase $75 tickets for the public viewing area!  Caught them in the nick of time!  They came right down and joined our pack.  So all in all, there were forty-nine of us together that day, my own thirteen-year-old not included since he came down ill the night before!  He was able to watch it live from home though thanks to the webcast.

A few of us are members of the Reagan Museum and Library so with our memberships, the parents who weren't were able to attend the Museum that day for free and of course all our students received a free tour of the museum that day.  We toured the regular museum rather quickly as the place was packed with all the students from all over the region!  Then a quick run through the Air Force One and Pavillion, outside to view Reagan's resting place and then we were allowed to take a more leisurely tour of the George Washington exhibit which was FANTASTIC!  I highly recommend a visit before it leaves in May!

Two of our students grandparents, Bob and Nancy Ulmer, had the privilege of pre-purchasing a Medal of Honor book and meeting all four Medal of Honor recipients, getting their book signed by each of them after the presentation.

I love the Reagan Library and look forward to visiting again (hopefully today or tomorrow) to bring my kids to see the George Washington exhibit (again!) since it is just that interesting, Adam missed our tour and our membership expires tomorrow!