What a Day!

For one reason or another, we had never been able to attend any of the Junior High's Quiz Bowl tournaments. Things had finally worked out that Abigayle and I were going to get to go to Cimarron yesterday and see what it was all about!

So, I got up earlier than normal so that I made sure that I took care of all that was necessary. As soon as both girls went to school, I darted out to one of my office locations so that I could get my daily cleaning done there. Shortly after it was finished, I went to the grade school and picked up Abigayle so that we could make our trek to Cimarron. Though the tournament was not to begin until 4:00, we left at about 12:30. I wanted to allow plenty of time to get there since I am not familiar with Cimarron and to make sure that we were there BEFORE everything got started. Abi and I thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon together!

Cimarron is less than 2 hours from Leoti. We arrived in plenty of time. We took time out to go to the local Presto Convenience Store so that we could use their restroom and pick up some snack items. After that, we went straight to the school and waited for approximately an hour. I've been told that there are approximately 26 area schools who send their Q.B. teams to the tournaments every week. Syracuse and the Plains teams arrived first. (That was interesting to see! Both schools sent their very large activity buses to the event but each bus only carried 6 or 7 students! I was shocked that with the fact that most schools are suffering financially right now, that they wouldn't send smaller vehicles with such a few students. Oh, well, that is none of my business...) Wichita County's 2 Suburbans arrived next. But, as the students passed in front of us, I never saw Leighlyn. That, of course, troubled me. As soon as her friends saw us parked there, they came over to visit. Her best friend was a bit puzzled that we had decided to come to the tournament even though Leighlyn WAS NOT GOING TO BE THERE. WHAT??? Where in the world was she? I was immediately concerned that she had become ill again or had been injured! Leighlyn had missed school on Wednesday because the virus had attacked her. Maybe it had not finished it's run with her... The offices of the Leoti schools are excellent about contacting us whenever something like that happened with one of our daughters. Of course, we were not at home but we did have my cellphone. Still, cellphones are not perfect. Maybe the school had tried to call us when we were in a valley.

No, that was not the case. Fortunately, she was fine. The coach had decided that since Leighlyn had not yet turned in her work from the day before when she was absent, she was not eligible to attend the last tournament that the 7th graders would be participating in for this year. This had been decided before school started yesterday morning. Still, no one bothered to call me.

So I had taken Abigayle out of school for the afternoon for no reason. We had driven over 100 miles one-way just so that we could park at the school there for an hour before we drove home again. To say that I was not exactly happy with the situation is a definite understatement. LOL!!!

Abigayle and I fastened our seatbelts and we got back onto Highway 50 and headed home. Shortly after we had gotten up to highway speed, Leighlyn called. She was sooo sorry for this mishap. Come to find out, a friend who was coming to the tournament had told her that she would have her mother call me and let me know that there was no need in Abigayle and I going to Cimarron afterall. Since her mother and I are friends, Leighlyn knew that she had my home and cellphone numbers. As far as Leighlyn was concerned, Abigayle and I would be waiting at home when the bus dropped her off after school.

As soon as Leighlyn noticed that our van was gone and that the front door was locked, she knew exactly where we were. She was very apologetic for the day's happenings to the point that was crying. As far as our feelings on the matter, Leighlyn has always been very responsible--more responsible than most kids her age. She was expecting that our friend would call me so Leighlyn was not concerned about it in the least possible way. We now have a new policy at home. From now on, we are not going to rely on other people to contact our parents in such situations. Though Leighlyn takes her cellphone to school most days, students are not allowed to use them until after school. So, from now on if something like this happens, she will go to the school office and ask to call home. That way we will all know what is going on.

There were three good things that came out of all of this:

1. Stan had not taken the day off from work.

2. We had not driven further than just about 2 hours from home for no reason.

3. Abigayle and I had some great mother-daughter time together.

VLE-B