Writer’s Block

I have it.  A confirmed case.  Not only can’t think of anything to write, I don’t much like having written anything that I do write.  The result is tons of unfinished drafts and no recent postings.

I am considering letting this blog dangle for a bit and spending my time and energy on my other blog. 

I’m also very, very busy beyond the digital dimension and finding the time to write anything, quality or not, is difficult and cuts into my sleep time.  Not a good thing for someone who deals with kids and doesn’t operate well on minimal amounts of sleep.

I’m giving myself permission to take a break from here for now.  If you want to read me, then follow me over to my other place. 

I just can’t keep both blogging plates in the air right now.

 

The Easy, Economical and Earth Friendly Thing

There are certain things I’m just not good at and I don’t care.  I used to care.  I don’t care anymore.  It is just the way it is.  I am a single mom with a life outside my Single Momdom.  This is not to say that I abandon my kids in my own quest for personal hedonistic gratification.  It just means that I do have parts of my life have nothing to do with my children.  So, between doing the Single Mom Thing, doing the Career Professional Person Thing in order to do the Pay The Bills On Time Thing and then doing the Adult Time Thing, there’s not a whole lot of time to do the put myself through misery to fail at the Trying To Learn Something I’m Not Sure I Care About Being Any Good At Anyway Thing.

 Okay, I’m pretty artsy.  I’m also creative.  I just hate prep work.  This makes me terrible at anything that requires a great deal of prep before the final product can be realized.  I’m not a good housepainter because of this. My cooking lacks the necessary planning and prep all of the time.  I’d suck at landscaping, and sewing was, and will never be, my claim to faim. I have a mother who was an amazing seamstress and she taught herself…oh…probably about the time she was the age I am now or maybe just slightly younger.  My older sister has a certain knack in this area as well.  I sadly lack all the patience required to really pull of a good hand sewn garment. 

Recently, however, I’ve stumbled across several YouTube videos that are just the kind of thing I could pull off.  No prep.  No patterns.  No rocket science.  I could actually do this and be successful!

Here’s one I wish I’d seen when my kids were younger.  It’s easy, economical and earth friendly…and I could do it! Not that I would, but I could!

 

Alltop.com: CABs New Best Friend

C’mon in!  Grab a cuppa Joe, find a comfy seat on one of the large overstuffed chairs and browse through the endless options of digital magazines.  You can flip through the pages of this one, take a few off the rack and curl up and devour them completely or you can wander aimlessly from topic to topic and title to title. 

This is the genius behind my new favorite site (well, okay, one of them, but it has all my other favorite sites there so it has to by my most favorite): Alltop.com.  It is like a giant magazine rack of all my favorite places on the web.  Alltop aggregates all my favorite sites about my favorite topics all in one convenient place on the web.  No more going from link to link on my blog roll.  No more crowding my favorites tab on my browser.  Yeah, and I’m still trying to figure out how RSS feeds work so Alltop solved that one for me too.  I just go to Alltop.   It not only does this for me personally, Alltop provides this service for millions of other people all over the web.  Alltop would be glad to be your online magazine rack as well. 

Think of it this way.  If you are a magazine lover or a newspaper nut you understand how these treasures can accumulate over time.  In my living room and around my house I used to have a pile of newspapers here, a stack of magazines there and when I had a coffee table the thing was continuously piled with magazines, newspapers and books about the things I was interested in and the author’s I was currently reading.  Then, I got rid of the coffee table, piled the papers in a neat wicker basket and the magazines in a cool container or two, by topic and genre, so they could be displayed facing forward for easy access.  Alltop does (exponentially, I might add)  in digital world what I just did in my living room.

I suggest you go check it out and see for yourself.  You can see the badge in my side bar and the link is first on my blog roll…or it should be soon.

While you’re there if you like my blog, suggest Welcome to Cabs Place! to Alltop.  I’d really love to show up there, because, well, then it would just mean I was hanging out with all the other cool kids!  

Enjoy!

 

Football: The American Dream

To be a star football player is nearly every American boy’s dream at some point in his life, even if it is only a fleeting aspiration held for a short season.  For my son, the dream to play football ignited before he was 5 and endures to this very day.  He dreams of being a star quarterback or a key running back for a well known and glorious team one day.  His love of the sport, his goals and dream to play remain undaunted by the fact that football, more than nearly any other sport, requires the player to manifest a certain physique in order to be successful.  My son’s dreams remain in spit of the fact that he does not have the physique required by most in the sport who are successful.

Let’s just call a spade a spade.  My son, at 14, is still a little guy.  As an eighth grader, he is the oldest in his class.  His  birthday, falling easily on the 1st of September, meant that we had the choice to enter him in kindergarten the day he turned 5 or we could keep  him out another year.  We chose to keep him out, knowing that if the parental genetics he was likely endowed with became a reality, he would be a late bloomer. So, far our predictions have been accurate.  Even tests completed by specialists indicate that while he has no deficiency in his growth hormones, he is, according to his bone age, three years behind his chronological age.  Believe it or not, this is still within the range of normal.

This does not bode well, however, for the young man who dreamed of playing football almost from the moment he took his first breath.  As the oldest in his class by nearly a year, he remains the very shortest in his class.  He’s also a thin and wiry build, not a stocky build.  He is easily blown over by a stiff breeze or appears as though he could be. 

  My son, for all his diminutive stature is not one to give up on himself or his dreams quite so easily.  He could never play Pop Warner football because he never made the weight requirements for the age brackets he was in.  In 7th grade, he wanted to go out for his middle school football team. Thinking that he had to try out, knowing that if he tried out against the boys who’d been playing Pop Warner since 3rd grade, he’d never make it, his father and I discouraged this.  

This year, he wanted to try out again.  We again attempted to dissuade him using the same arguments but this year he did his research.  No it is not a try out situation.  They accept everyone.  We decided to relent, knowing he’d probably sit on the sidelines most, if not all of every game. 

My son is pursuing his dream.  In spite of what seems to all of us adults as  insurmountable and “no-win” odds he has figured out how he can be on his school’s team.  He attends every practice, works hard and, by golly, is as fast as some of those biggest boys who’ve been playing for years.  This in spite of the added weight of pads, even at the end of a 90 minute practice.  My son, the little guy, is teaching me what it means to never give up.  He is teaching me that if your dreams mean that much to you, don’t sell yourself short by looking at the seemingly “insurmountable odds” and talking yourself out of even trying.  He is going after his dream with gusto.

Last week he played with the big boys in his first football game against “the other” middle school in our hometown.  He played several positions, but one of them was running back. He also received a punt from the other team and though it knocked him on his seat, he caught it and was one of the few on either team to catch the ball without dropping or fumbling it. 

True, he spent most of the time on the sidelines watching.  True he only got to play, really, once the score was 30 points ahead of the other team.  True his total play time was minimal.  But did he care????

Not on your life.  He was just pleased to be a part of the action.  Sidelines or in the mix, my son really has a grip on what it means to be part of a team. He realizes that all the players have a role and without one or the other the team is less than it could really be.  I’m so proud of my son for “getting” that.  I’m so proud of him for his determination in spite of the naysayers in his life and in spite of the impossibilities that he has no control over.  He remains undiscouraged.

My son at the age of fourteen is teaching me lessons I wish I’d learned at that age.  He’s teaching me lessons I still need to learn at my age.  He is providing me with inspiration to keep trying, don’t listen to the naysayers and even more importantly, don’t be one of the naysayers.  You never know what can happen if you refuse to give up.

 

 

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Single Mom Insanity

Managing the time between work obligations and requirements and the demands of single parenting with three children still at home is beginning to make me believe I might be the next candidate for the psych ward at the local hospital.  Actually, with the way my life has been lately the idea of entitling myself to a complete breakdown and ending up in a place where I could be completely void of any responsibilities…even for myself…sounds pretty appealing.

I know I am not alone when it comes to struggling with the often conflicting demands that working parents face when they try to balance a career and a family.  This particular back to school season, for me, seems especially difficult when it comes to walking that tightrope between the professional and personal.  I’m blessed with a job that I really do love which puts food on the table and a roof over our heads and allows me to spend the summers off with my children while still collecting a paycheck for hours already worked.  After 15 years in this career, you’d think this year would be smooth sailing.  That just hasn’t been the case this year.  

I know there are single working moms (and dads for that matter) out there that have jobs where they work most of the weeks of the year regardless of the season.  Instead of having school holidays and breaks off with their children, they have to work and find childcare when school is not in session, thereby adding to the total overhead of the family.  I know there are single parents out there who have jobs that require them to work long hours, sometimes at the last minute, often with no extra compensation and without notice thereby reducing the number of waking hours they get to spend with their children each day.  I rarely ever have to make childcare arrangements for my children on “no school” days since I am able to be home with them.  But, while I have a great deal of time off to be almost a stay-at-home mom for parts of the year, there are other seasons where I have no life at all.  Back to school is one of them.

This year its been especially bumpy for a number of reasons.  Increased workload with reduced amount of regularly weekly time to plan and implement the requirements is one piece of the the picture.  A vast amount of new material to master and assimilate in a short period of time (try no time) and without much training (yet) is demanding my time and depleting my energy.  Then there are the adjustments at home, which actually have been fairly smooth except that Number 3 has been sick since Sunday and I’ve not felt 100 %  for a week now.  We are all of us dealing with new schedules and the new demands of these new schedules.  The children seem to be handling it fine.  I, on the other hand, feel like my relatively ordered and balanced life is just on the verge of spinning out of control.  I don’t feel like the person who has so many plates in the air and they keep running from plate to plate trying to keep them all spinning.  No, instead, I feel like I am the plates.  First wobbling, next in perfect synch, then next spinning at such hypersonic speeds that I feel that at any moment the centrifugal force of my life will send me flying and shattering against some immovable object somewhere out there.

It is insanity. It is crazy.  I know I can’t sustain this pace for long and I worry that I might have to.  I might not be working longer hours at the office, but each night I’m bringing several hours of work home just to stay on top of the next day.  Forget  planning for a week.  When I get home I have several hours of work awaiting me just to get things sorted for the children.  Dinner, dishes, baths, homework, referring squabbles, taxi duties (fortunately I was free of that tonight) and always there is laundry.  Then lunches to get ready and the night is over.  The night is long past over.  I fall exhausted in bed only to drag out again the next morning and start it all over again.

I know my life is not unusual. I know this is a temporary dilemma for me.  At least I hope that it is.  It is very possible that it could just be cracking up to be one of those kind of years.  I also know that many, many single parents out there deal with this dilemma day after day, year after year with no end in sight. I am not complaining.  I am just expressing a reality that I know others share. I’m hoping that maybe someone out there might have some suggestions about how they manage when the demands seem so overwhelming.  I guess I’m asking for help, for ideas, for suggestions.

How do you deal with the single mom (or dad) insanity of spinning all the plates equally between work and family?

 

Mother and Son in a Visit to Auzten

Autzen Stadium. My reaction? Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore!

It was a last minute trip really. I’d had a horrible week the week prior.  My Semi Professional Photographer Friend called me up out of the blue with the offer.  Two tickets, one for me, one for my son to the opening game at Autzen Stadium in Eugene to see the Oregon Ducks in their first home game of the season against Purdue.  He knew I needed to get away.  He also knew my son’s birthday was just ten days prior and that this would be the perfect post-birthday gift.

Making the "O"! "Get ready to be loud, Mom!" he coached me ahead of time.

Two tickets.  Free.

My son is the biggest Duck fan on the planet!  For the last 5 years running he’s been given a ticket to one game of the season to see his favorite team play.  This ticket is given to him by his dad every year.  A couple of years ago, I looked up the cost of tickets, hoping to be able to do the same, thus making it two games a year for him.  These tickets are not cheap.  Add to this the idea that overnight accommodations are required if it is a night game and the entire proposition for me was a no brainer.  This single mom simply couldn’t do it.

So, when I got this invitation, it took me about two seconds to figure out how I was going to make it work.  It required some cooperation on the part of the ex, which I easily obtained.  Before I knew it, I was on the road to Eugene to watch my first Duck game in nearly 20 years and the first time ever that my son and I had done anything like this…just the two of us.  No other siblings. No other friends.  No other adults, until we got there and met up with SPPF.  It was just us: mother and son. 

Life with my son lately has been a roller coaster ride of sorts.  One day it is a joy to be around him. The next, it is a nightmare. That goes with the territory, I’m told.  He just turned 14 on the first of this month.  I hear his behavior, while not fun and certainly volatile is pretty developmentally appropriate.  It was because of this that it was especially nice to be gifted with this opportunity.  Even so, I was a bit worried about how it would go.  His mood can be so unpredictable these days.  I needn’t have worried.  Other than being over the top in his enthusiasm and general spirit of brotherhood with All Duck Fans Everywhere he was the wonderful person I’ve generally known him to be most of the time.

There were so many strange things in green and yellow to behold at the tailgater.

So, rather than ramble on about how great the experience was for me, I’d rather show the pictures.  It was such a wonderful time for us and the memory of this special weekend will be remembered by us both for many years to come.  I really think it made a difference for my son, because his temperament, while not perfect, has much improved.  Maybe all he really needed was a little bit of individual Mommy time after all.

 

On our way to the game with all the crowds. It was a long walk there from the motel. It was even longer at midnight after the game was over and we were exhausted.

57,700 and some odd people attended this event.  Everyone dressed in Duck Drag! 

We had so much fun getting into the spirit of things! All my Duck attire is borrowed. My son collected his over the years.

I didn’t own any Duck gear for one reason.  I’m an OSU alum and have been a closet Beaver fan forever. Maybe things are changing with me.  Yeah, just chalk it up to a midlife crisis.  ;0

Ahhhh! Duck Boy loves me! Maybe now I'll make Mother-of-the-Year.

Wow!  Look at that gnarly double chin I appear to have!  Nice!  I did feel like I was choking when this picture was being taken.  Now I know why! 

It was a sold out game. Huge stadium. Very different 20 years and lots of money later, that's for sure.

A tired happy Duck Fan after the game facing a loooonnngggg walk back to the motel yet.

It was a blast.  The Ducks sure know how to throw a party.  Their fans know how to support their team.  I know I’ll cherish this memory for years to come.  I suspect my son will as well.

 

Back to School Eve

I guess you could say it is “Back to School Eve”.  It’s the evening before the first day of school.  I’m amped up on adrenaline, as usual, and will likely not be able to fall asleep till nearly midnight, in spite of my best efforts to make a ten thirty bedtime. 

I’m ready to go.  My classroom is ready.  My lessons and materials are prepped.  I have lunches made, my outfit picked out and there is plenty of time to spare for me to still head to bed by own self-appointed deadline.  I just can’t.  That’s why I’m here writing this drivel. Hopefully I can dump some of the spinning mental energy here and move ahead…where ever “ahead”  is.

The picture to the right is Number 4.  No, she isn’t going to go to school like that tomorrow.  Yes, that is exactly how we both feel about the prospect of another school year.  She for her reasons and me for mine.  Tonight she was even crying about going to school and telling me how much she didn’t want to go.  This child, of all children, who is bright and so social, dreading to go to school?  It concerns me, I have to admit. 

For me, I’ve had my own moments, of late, which are making it difficult to apply myself and to focus. Okay, wait.  I always have a difficult time focusing, but this is worse than usual. Further, well, it’s just another bloody transition and, quite frankly…I’m tired.  I’m tired of life being a constant transition.  I know, even as I write that that this is a completely unrealistic expectation, but I do feel it.  I’d just like for something, sometime, someday to last.  Yeah, if wishes were horses…  

So, the really twisted thing about all this is, that after all that semi-despairing mojo I just dumped, I am strangely hopeful and optimistic about this school year and I’m beginning to feel that  old anticipation and excitement that comes with getting back into the fall routine, of staying busy, working hard and doing it with excellence.  I somehow know with a conviction I’ve not ever had  before, at least not like this, that whatever happens, I will be okay.  Bad year or good, good times or bad, hard times or easy, love or loss, I will be okay.  I will be more than okay. 

I guess what I’m feeling is the absence of fear.  Maybe peace is the word I’m searching for? 

I came across a quote today, I don’t know the originator, but the quote said, “Never take the counsel of your fears…or naysayers”.  In an environment filled with naysayers this is a tough order for a little girl as fearful as myself.  But it is my new mantra…or…affirmation, if you will. 

And there, you see?  This unorganized, incoherent dump of some of the junk that I thunk has worked it’s magic…I’m feeling relaxed and sleepy and it’s only 30 minutes past my bedtime.

Good night all, and if you are one of those who heads back to school tomorrow…here’s to a great school year for you!

 

Back To School

Yes, pretty soon and already for some in some places, students will be donning their backpacks loaded with new packs of crayons, pencils, erasers and markers and heading off to school for yet another year.  For me, I head back tomorrow.  As every student and teacher knows, The New Year does not begin in January, it begins in September.  That’s really when I do my New Year’s Resolutions. 

Because most elementary school teachers by nature of the job (packed classrooms with little or no planning or prep time) have to bring work home and therefore have no life during the school year), it gets tough to do the things we all had so much time for during the summer.  You know things like laundry, dishes, yardwork, cooking (those of us that know how)  eating, sleeping, going to the bathroom, socializing,cleaning and blogging.  I am no exception here.  I know I will have no life for the next nine months, but that’s what I signed on for when I decided to take a position that rolls with the school year and gives me extended time away from the classroom (it’s never totally off since teachers do work during the summer months they just don’t deal with other people’s children) during the summer.

I know this year is going to be tough in many ways.  Increased class sizes due to budget cuts will increase my workload, but my instructional day has lengthened while my planning time has diminished or been restructured in such away that it occurs every two weeks instead of weekly.  Please do not read that as a complaint.  My situation is not an unusual one these days. These adjustments are simply my reality right now and, as I am want to do in most areas of my life, I will take it in stride and seek to win over rather than to be done in by the circumstances.  It is just how I roll…most of the time.  I mean, I do, like most people, have my moments.  I have the moments though, they don’t have me.  Anyway…

Given that this is already starting out to be a challenging year, I am not sure how often I will be blogging here.  My goal is as close to daily as possible.  I’m not sure that’s realistic but we will give it a whirl. 

Until then, here’s to teachers everywhere who are getting ready to face another New Year!  Happy New Year!

 

Facebook Applications

I’m not an app junkie.  I don’t own an iPhone or any kind of smart phone.  The phone I have has a number of features that I have no idea how to use, nor do I care.  I’m on Facebook, but I don’t even check out my notifications on a regular basis. In fact, I’ve been known to let them stack up there till there are 90+ notifications.  The requests to participate in the applications that are those virtual worlds like Farmville, FarmTown, Sorority Life and YoVille have gone unnoticed by me…until lately.

Until this weekend actually. 

I don’t know quite how it happened.  I was just there minding my own computer business.  I was working on a writing project that was for all intents and purposes going nowhere and I needed a break.  Everyone else was out having a life and sucking the last few days of summer for all they were worth (read they were not at home anywhere near their computers).  I needed a break so I decided to clean out some of the requests at Facebook.  Now that I actually have a computer that works this is an easier project to undertake…or so I thought.

Big mistake.

I got hooked on ALL the apps I just mentioned plus some others and wasted a boatload of time yesterday dinking around with virtual worlds that I neither really care about or will have time to visit or maintain after summer ends and I head back to the real world of leaving home and going to a job everyday.  I mean, what was I thinking? 

Seriously.  It is a day of my life I’ll never get back.  Yet already this morning instead of getting to work on the tasks and things I know I need to do, I fizzled another couple of hours there again.  This is the new best procrastination tool ever for me apparently.  Sigh. 

I’m going to have Facebook withdrawals starting tomorrow.  I just know it.

In the end, it isn’t about the Facebook apps or procrastination.  It’s really about missing Oz and Number 1.  Three wonderful weeks and Oz became a part of our lives in a way none of us, including him, ever expected.  Now he’s gone back to that continent several oceans away.  This makes having a cup of tea a lonely endeavor…so I turn to stupid Facebook apps to ignore the feelings.  Now our oldest daughter and sister is gone to college and we are all feeling the big gap that is left when someone you love leaves the proximity of your physical location.  We know they are alive and doing well.  We talk to each of them daily either digitally or by phone and sometimes both.  It doesn’t replace the emptiness you feel when you are fixing dinner and you think, he would have been here and been doing that and we would have been talking or joking or having tea and telling me to relax and take some “me” time. It doesn’t fill the silence that exists when I think she’d have been in here already this morning chatting my ear off about her date last night or her plans for the day. 

Sigh, clearly, this transition is going to take some getting used to.  In the meantime, I refuse to waste any more of my life on Facebook apps.  Really!   I mean it.

 

Officially Collegiate

Welcome To University!

Well, she’s officially off to college.  I know, I’ve probably beaten this topic to death, but transitions are big.  Never mind that I’ve been mentally preparing for this particular one since I found out Number 1 was going to enter the world.  The range and intensity of the emotions still surprised me.  They weren’t necessarily my emotions either which made it somewhat harder to handle.

L to R Number 1 ignores Number 2's antics

I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a helicopter mom.  I don’t hover.  I teach my kids the skills they need to manage themselves without me,then I let them do it, occasionally providing further instruction or correction as needed.  I don’t hover in the classrooms, I don’t harrass the teachers or the school and I don’t meddle.  I am, however, very present if and when I sense my children need me even if they don’t particularly ask with words.  I also ask them what they need instead of assuming I automatically know.

Yesterday morning started off with all of us getting far too little sleep.  I didn’t sleep due to the restless dread of attending a day of family activities with my first husband and his wife also attending.  This still, even after a decade, feels awkward to me. Then, for my daughter, it was the long drawn out goodbye to the boyfriend who is not choosing to attend college right away.  (Big mistake, I think, but then college isn’t for everyone.  I mean some people are content never to challenge their thinking ever, but hey!)  

I love buildings on university campuses

I set my alarm for 4 a.m.  I woke number 1 at 5:15.  At 5:30, I heard her crying.  I went into her room and saw her standing there looking at her empty bookshelf, her empty closet and dresser crying.  The feelings were just overwhelming to her.  Excitement, apprehension, sadness, all wrapped up in one overwhelming bundle of emotions.  I felt for her.  Even though my own experience leaving home was so very different than this, I understood her feelings.  She needed the few minutes to simply say good-bye to her childhood.  This was how she needed to do it. 

We hugged and a few minutes later we were on the road.  Late, but on our way nonetheless. 

The drive up was fairly uneventful, the discussion was interspersed with her trying to sleep.  As we neared her College Town her excitement began to build. I will never forget that last drive up with her.  I spent most of it reassurring her that she would be fine and that this was a wonderful adventure she was embarking upon.  I truly believe it, too.  It makes me sad that Iwasn’t a bit more deliberate and conscious when I was her age.  But that’s how it goes I suppose.  My goal was always to make sure that she had the skills and the self awareness to make her own decisions, not because she thought they’d please me or anyone else but because they were the right ones for her.

When we got to the campus, I was impressed with how well my daughter chose her university for herself.

Note that I'm way behind the crowd snapping pictures!

First off,  the campus is fairly confined and compact, unlike the university I attended where the campus sprawled over miles of the town and many, many blocks.  The larger campus of a state university might have overwhelmed my daughter who isn’t really into anonymity.  For me, the large campus and even larger classes was the perfect place to hide while I tried to figure out what life was all about.  I like the city for the same reason.  I can camouflage and watch others without really even being noticed.  I’m a part but I can also disappear if I want.  This is not my daughter who is far more confident than I was and who wants to connect, participate, and isn’t afraid to be very involved in life and others’ lives.  I am pleased with her confidence and with how comfortable she is in her own skin.

Second, the whole philosophy of the place fit my daughter, fairly socially aware and all.  There’s an emphasis placed on the expectations for developing the whole person and pursuing excellence.  You get the picture. 

Of course, the whole day lent itself to such introspective ponderings.  On the one hand, I feel very much as if all I’ve ever done in life is pour myself into kids and on the other hand I feel as if this is the greatest thing to have done with one’s life. 

Uh oh. There's no room to walk now.

In between meetings, I helped her unpack her stuff in less than 45 minutes.  This was  possible because Ex #1 and The StepMom took the other kids and went to get McGrodo’s for everyone.  Unpacking all that stuff and finding a place for it was no easy challenge.

It was especially gratifying when as the President of the University spoke, quoting from Middlemarch, about the value of education for the purposes of contributing to something greater than just oneself.  After all the dinner time conversations where certain members of the then family poo pooed the entire college experience, I leaned over to my daughter and said, “Now do you get it?  College isn’t just about the academics, honey.  You are NEVER in a million years going to experience any of this just going to work every day right out of high school…if…indeed…you can get work.”

She just smiled and said, “Yeah, I so get it.” 

Fun thing about all that…my other three kids got it too.  Even my youngest is now talking about going to college.  Nice! 

Number 4 wanted to go swimming here!

Naysayers effectively quashed, check! 

It’s all good!

Anyway, while emotional, it was more fun than dramatic and that’s never a  bad thing.  My daughter is happy with her choice and I am happy with that. 

Enjoy the pics of our day together! 

 

 

 

Not Number 1's housing arrangement. This was upperclass accommodations. Go Figure.

      

A campus tour to show us the trees?

Number 2 and attention seeking behaviors!

How Number 4 coped with the tour of the campus

 

From Left to Right:  Number 4, 3 and 1 looking down from the story above in the new Tech Building.

Number 2, at it again. How'd she get in there???

She did end up in the water after all!!!

Heading back to the car to go home.

That’s it.  Number 1 is officially collegiate!  Only three more years till it is Number 2’s turn!