So great to hear so much good (and growing!) news!! I literally said, “WOW!” out loud when I read Missypie’s S is getting married! Had surely not seen that one on FB! And you are never a downer. As I’ve always said, there are far more interesting stories about taking a less than straight and narrow path in life!
My sister and her family (along with my oldest sister who tagged along solo) all went to Iceland last June and said it was the trip of a lifetime. Considering they are both extremely well traveled and my middle sister lived around the world to boot, that’s really saying something. I received a now absolute favorite Icelandic sweater knit by a farmer’s grandmother in their barn. My sisters met her personally. They really did it all including volcano spelunking AND some thing else where they all had to wear special wetsuits! Truly an adventure. Anyway… They loved it and you will too!
And I seriously cannot believe that Oregons gbaby is 4!! But so very happy to hear the family is still together, which given the statistics in this world is pretty great news all around! I will hit the double-nickels this summer… All of a sudden I feel very unaccomplished in this life. But then I think about my resume…
Oldest D is teaching 3rd English at a French immersion school in SF and has already signed her contract for next year. She has a great deal of support within the school, and they love her, as well they should. But it’s a real change from last year at a public school that was 98% Asian. While you’d think they’d appreciate the diversity, even if it comes in the form of a blonde and blue-eyed Minnesotan… You’d be wrong. I had raised a daughter to look people in the eye when they were speaking to you, but apparently in the Asian culture that was a sign of hubris and disrespect. When she told me her principal called her obstinate, I was pretty incensed. S? Pretty sure I can see it. Younger D? Absolutely, no question. But this one? No flippin way. Honestly, I really felt a sense of cultural prejudice but I settled for the parents of her students being outraged and fighting for her, all the way to the superintendent of SF public schools! But she landed this job almost immediately last spring and while she sometimes misses having her own classroom, the third grade team is truly a great fit for her. It’s higher pay, more vacation, and she is literally a five minute walk door to door!
S ('09) has had a challenging past two years - but what else is new there? He is still with the GF from college, who I adore and pretty sure he does too. And while he didn’t get any offers during his cycle of med schools (albeit he had a top list for sure), the gf was accepted into every single one to which she applied! She also had a perfect MCAT score. S is so completely proud of her! Better still, we all have come to see that it worked out for the best for him too so far. Some time ago, he joined an offshoot venture of his parent company, a start up that works to improve patient experience (and thus create loyalty and trust) and is loving the challenge. He is likely headed to Boston in a few months or maybe SF depending, but the GF is definitely headed to Vanderbilt for the next four this fall. They say a flight is a flight, as long as it’s direct, but we will see. He will be traveling a lot more for business so if nothing else, he’ll have miles to spend. They seem very supportive of one another but I don’t ask all that many questions about specifics.
Our youngest and final is set to graduate in June! To have three college graduates is pretty rewarding since all along their education has been our priority. But it sure will be nice to not pay tuition! Although this youngest one does fancy herself somewhat special when we ask what she is going to be doing following graduation. She is our most independent in personality, but we are still paying the rent and the cell phone bill, and we’d like to get her off our payroll. Little did I know that what I thought was graphic design more or less has evolved into a full blown Art Department major in Digital Media. She has had some wonderful experiences and She took a scholarship to play lacrosse one last season knowing full well she was merely a back up and that suited her just fine.
My sister arrives on Monday with her current junior in HS to visit some schools. Not sure if I want to even experience how amped up the process continues to be, but it will be fun to hang with my sister. She is an organizer extraordinaire and I really could use some help in making decisions on what to even hang on the walls! We bought this cute little cottage and I look forward to doing some fun things while also living a lot more scaled down. I unpack some boxes and wonder what the hell I was thinking!!
Headed to Denver for 10 days to catch two weekends of home games and apparently D2 is putting my crafty side to work in helping her with her capstone project, of which I need more details because it’s not MY capstone project. But I am happy to help with a glue gun or whatever because like some of you know, playing a DI sport that travels over a lot more weekends that are at home is a time commitment to say nothing of work outs and practices. So I will help where I can!
OMG… This is way too long and I’m just posting… Feel free to ignore or glaze over!
