While Stephen was teaching at Surprise Valley Elementary School, he held a field trip every May for his students and their parents. The trip featured swimming, train rides, garden tours, good food, and just an overall fun family day. This eventually evolved into all the students from K-8 at the school attending if they made their reading goals. Later, after the train was completed in 2004, a train ride was added to the Pumpkin Patch in October. Even after Stephen retired, the field trips continued until 2018, for a total of for 27 years.
