Life on the short bus

I volunteered to be a chaperone on Saturday for Holly's Youth group trip to Magic Mountain - known officially as the 'Hallelujah Jubilee'. This loosely translates to signing up for 12 hours of supervision for 12-15 teens ranging from 12 to 18 years old. I've done it before with no visible marks to show for it and actually rather enjoy the gig, as I like to believe that it keeps me current and hip (something that just comes so naturally to me) with the youth (affectionately referred to as the 'yoot' - something that I must have heard a comedian use once and so I stole it shamelessly)

In addition to the usual excitement that accompanies an all-day trip, we were finally at long last able to take our recently-purchased bus out on its inaugural trip with Steve having passed the appropriate testing for a commercial license. It is a 'short bus' and we were proud to get on board to enjoy the 60 minute ride to Valencia - keeping all arms, hands and limbs inside the windows and our seat belts ON of course!

The trip out was without incident and we enjoyed the musical stylings of Dylan's iPod that could connect through our 1950's sound system on the bus. We rocked out to Def Leppard, Queen and Journey...Steve and I were very happy to know that our music was once again cool, just like us!

Upon our arrival to Six Flags we met up with my friends Kris and Elizabeth (you no doubt recognize them from the England/Shepherd of the Hills notoriety) who were kind enough to agree to help oversee our brood of 13, making us a happy group of 17 all-in. We stuck together through the park for the entire day and given the age range and broad differences in the group, I'd declare the day a complete success and a lot of fun too, even the complete drenching that I received on the Roaring Rapids or whatever the spinning boat in the whitewater is called. We fortunately did it early enough in the day that all of my clothing, shoes, hair AND undergarments were dried off by about 4 pm.

There was one incident with a hat and some shoes belonging to two of the boys that two of the girls thought would be funny to take...I let it ride out for a bit until it looked like we were heading down the Junior High road of immaturity (no disrespect to my JH friends...but let's face it...you can really drag a situation out for some drama if you want to!!) and then invoked my stern voice and authoritative look to persuade the girls that they really wanted to give the items back. It worked without much incident - I knew that Holly could vouch for me if anyone thought that I was bluffing!

After a good long 11 or so hours at the park, we loaded back onto the bus, stopped for dinner and then made the journey home. This is where I suddenly became very uncool (at least in my head...I remained very cool on the exterior!!) I ended up in a seat that was under a speaker and over a wheel well so I was getting blasted out while enjoying very little leg room. The music selections changed from the familiar tunes of the morning ride and while I tried to groove along, I have to admit that the thoughts were in my head, "What IS this music and why is it playing so LOUD???"

When did I become a parent who doesn't understand and appreciate the music of the yoot? I shall have to make a visit to the iTunes library and brush up on my music knowledge to better appreciate my next trip on the short bus!!