Last week was my first class trip with Milo’s school. A massive herd of 5-6 year-olds piled onto several buses and rode into the city center. They inundated the “cardboard cathedral,” then moved on to Hagley Park. This photo is just Milo’s individual class. I imagine that that tree feels like the conifers in those mountain-top groves in Mexico, smothered in overwintering monarchs.

Full disclosure: I did not take this gorgeous photo. A friend did.
The “cardboard cathedral” (a.k.a. the “Transitional Cathedral”) is so called because its laminated wooden structural supports are encased in gigantic cardboard tubes, like a castle made from paper towel rolls. You can kind of see it reflected fish-eye style in the ornament. The historic stone cathedral, wrecked in the earthquakes, is still mired in legal debate, a happy instance for the pigeons who inhabit the venerable rafters. The cardboard cathedral was constructed as a temporary substitute cathedral (the city is called christCHURCH for goodness sakes), but I think it hosts more tourists than anything else. Jeremiah’s work party was even there one year.  Now they’ve got a christmas tree with shiny ornaments.  Good thing God doesn’t really live in buildings, otherwise he might feel that his house was getting cluttered with burdensome traditions.  

Read those expressions–Proud, Proud, Proud. Milo’s proud to be a big brother, herding his little sister around. Naomi’s proud to be included in the big kid photo.

Here’s the swarm of red coats all together in the park! Class trips seem to be a proof that the inevitable chaos of little bodies directed in a thousand directions by little minds does not always end badly. To my knowledge, no little people were lost. Heaven help the parents whose students are dressed in green uniforms.