All of this happened before 9:15 ...

Today has been a busy day.

First, Baby X set off on her first overnight field trip with her third-grade class... 3 days and 2 nights to stay in cabins, hike around, get really wet (it's supposed to rain all 3 days), do the campfire thang (in the rain... yeah, right), learn stuff, yada yada yada...

She is soooooo excited!

The most awesome thing about this girl is that she is almost always up for anything.  

She is excited about this trip... EVEN WITH THE RAIN.

Change and challenge?

Bring 'em on!

(I think she takes after her mom)

My husband is chaperoning the trip.

He is also excited.

Two nights of sleeping in a rustic bunkbed, 

surrounded by 8- and 9-year old boys screaming and stinking,

keeping those overprivileged kids motivated in the cold and rain...

Of course he's excited ;-)

They had to leave super early. There was a search-frenzy before they could leave... the little camera.  

Must.

Document.

Adventure.

It could not be found... it was nowhere.  It wasn't even in my car (which is where it should NOT have been anyway... but they did look which meant unlocking my car and going inside of it... this part becomes important in a minute).  So they left without the little camera but took the big, honkin' professional-photographer-that-he-is camera.

About an hour later it was time for the the boys and I to head off to school.  Miss C had just created a perfectly-timed 'present' for me... so I sent the boys out to go on in the car and get buckled in.  I'm in the middle of clean-up when Big G starts asking me where the keys are (do you see where this is headed? I didn't). I very annoyedly give him the verbal list of the places he should look and should already know to look.  He looks.  He can't find. I finish my job and start looking.  We are now late.

And it hits me.

I make the call.

Me: Hey, babe. Where did you put the keys to my car after you looked for the camera?
Him: Oh... %^@#!
Me:  Yeeeeahhhh, that's what I thought. Okay... well, we won't bother looking for them anymore! Good to know! Have fun!  *click*

They were in his coat pocket.

I find the spare where it is actually supposed to be!  (score!)
I find the extra house key... also where it is supposed to be!  (double score!)

We leave.

We get stuck in heavy traffic because we have left the house after the "tipping point"... it is now full-on rush hour.
Finally off the freeway, the unthinkable happens...

See that white truck?

That's where it happened... 

where I 

ran out of gas!

but there were a lot of cars behind me 

Two good samaritans noticed that I was standing outside of the car 

with the hazards on

in the middle of the intersection

and offered to help push me to the side.

it always amazes me how few people are willing to "get involved"

and how awesome it is that ANYone is willing.

Once we were parked in an actual parking place,

I hoofed on down to this

gas station

where I bought 

and filled

this

I then cavorted back to the car

cavorted because I was so 

happy 

a) that it wasn't pouring down rain,

b) that I had cash on hand to buy the goods,

c) that it was only a block and a half between car and gas station

(this mess could've happened on the frickin freeway, in all that rush hour traffic)

d)  that my oldest is old enough to stay in the car with the youngers so that my hoofing only took a couple of minutes instead of a solid hour ;-)

After I returned to the car and put the little sip o' gas in the tank (without any spillage, I might add ;) ),
I insisted on shooting a video to further document the morning drama... as if the pics and the post aren't enough :P

This annoyed Big G because we were already running SUPER late to school.

 Like that is different than any other day? but I figured we were already soooo late...

Would this be considered an excused tardy? And excusable one?

Dang.
That's what I thought :P

To all of you punctual people out there... what would you have done differently so that punctuality would have been achieved?
– This is an area in which I need a lot of help!