<p>wrldtravlr, 3 proms, wow!</p>
<p>About mealplans - Gettysburg has a great plan for the “hungry all the time” student - I’m pretty sure it’s an unlimited plan! I think they said the record is 26 uses in one day, by someone on the football team lol. And the food is supposed to be really good too!</p>
<p>Reeinaz. I like the approach. D will be opening a checking accoutn with debit card shortly to deposit her paychecks. We are also planning to set up a savings account where she can deposit her tips. Good idea on having him buy personal items. D isnt driving yet so that wont work here. </p>
<p>An exchange student sounds fun. I hope they hit it off. </p>
<p>Hope all had fun at prom. </p>
<p>Congrats YDS. Crossing my fingers for the student government lead. </p>
<p>Cingrats Anniezz on softball. </p>
<p>Both of my kids are worked hard at home. D got the weekend off however, because she worked 20 hours this weekend due to a scheduleing snafu. </p>
<p>We had a beautiful day getting the pool open and getting the patio cleaned up. Hotter than Hades today. D worked the entire day outside, but did manage to bring home pockets full of cash. </p>
<p>Earthmother. Love the image of your refrigerator. We barely drink milk. I have the only teenage boy without a ravenous appetitie.</p>
<p>What a great weekend! Hot as Hades, here, too. Five. More. Days. Then D is a senior.</p>
<p>Her GC at school sent her a list of schools to consider, 14 schools, but one was listed twice. LOL. She must really like that one. Somehow, she knows about schools with programs with NEW neuroscience programs, in other words, ones we have not researched. Hmmm.</p>
<p>Junior year is really winding down. There is a top college road show tomorrow night (H, Penn, Duke, Stanford, and Georgetown), but D is sending me by myself. She has projects due in almost ALL classes on Tuesday.</p>
<p>@BerneseMtn- wow, your GC actually gave you college suggestions? Must be nice. I’m not sure what the hell our GCs do, but it ain’t suggest colleges. Or anything else for that matter. They are worthless. I’m thinking about hiring someone to help me with all this college crap. Ugh.</p>
<p>It was hot here too today. DD13b is running around slamming doors because the director for her play just changed the rehearsal schedule AGAIN. Idk how kids are supposed to make work and other activities not interfer with rehearsal when they keep changing the schedule!!!</p>
<p>It has been a crazy weekend of ups and downs. S’13 qualified for states 4x4 for track! He was the alternate for the alternate and they made it by .04 of a second! Unfortunately S’16 had an asthma attack while we were there (his 1st) and we missed the race and he has been in the pediatric icu since Friday. I was really hoping he would come home today (it’s my bday) but it will hopefully be tomorrow morning. He actually is doing so much better that I don’t even care about the whole birthday thing, I just wish we could have all been together. And S’16 missed a soccer game and his 8th grade dance, just to add insult to injury…poor guy:(</p>
<p>I got so caught up in the negative I forgot some of the good stuff that happened. S’13 was elected president of his YAC group and found out he is going to be considered (along with 25-30 other kids) for a full tuition scholarship to U of M!</p>
<p>Oh Mommaof5, I am sorry to hear about the asthma. My youngest has it too, and we have been in the hospital for it as well. Scary when they can’t breathe isn’t it? Otherwise lots of good news for you and hopefully you’ll all be under one roof again tomorrow!</p>
<p>@momma: how scary!! I’m glad that your boy is on the mend! Congrats to your other S!</p>
<p>momma, asthma is so scary. My older son had it, so I know about those ER runs. He never had to stay overmight though. (((Hugs)))</p>
<p>OK, forget every bad thing I ever said about ds2. 
He has come through big today. Apparently in English early last week, he was given an assignment to develop a college portfolio. He needed to draft an essay and to answer 15 :eek: questions about his goals, struggles, personality, etc. Well, he was in an AP exam and so never got the assignment, which is due midweek. He finally got it today from a friend, and, by golly, he worked more than six hours on that thing, with breaks for dinner and with an eye on the Billboard Awards late in the evening. I just read it (he left it open on the computer), and, wow, he did a great job! He still has one question to answer – the dreaded “What five words best describe you?” But he can use the essay he already wrote for the summer camp for which he applied, so yea. This morning, before he got the assignment, I showed him what we wrote for his older brother’s brag sheet three years ago, and I think that helped him understand that this is supposed to be reflective and isn’t something he should just blow off. I’m really proud that he’s taking this seriously.</p>
<p>In more good news, he was named president of his language club and earned an award on the national exam! The presidency thing isn’t as bad as I feared because three of them are sharing the title. Should be pretty easy as he likes both of the other guys a lot.</p>
<p>Hoping that we all have a smooth week!</p>
<p>Momma, hang in there - thank goodness you have a good pediatric ICU close by.
And thanks to everyone for reminding me about meal plans, didn’t even think of it, but it’s now on the list of questions for the college fair & visits next month 
If it’s any consolation, it started raining again here, so enjoy Hades, at least you feel like summer is on the way, unlike northern Europe!!</p>
<p>Walker- our GC are the same. I think in our case there are just not enough of them. 3 for 800 students. (only 150 seniors). I also found that some of their advice was the kind that could get families in trouble. Example. Apply to any school regardless of cost. I agree with that, but I firmly believe in financial safeties. They didn’t talk about that at all. NO mention of ACT or SAT 2s. I cannot even get Ds GPA. Definitely in this alone. </p>
<p>Walker- horrible about changed schedules. Our musical director was quite the Diva herself and adjusted scheduled on a whim often. </p>
<p>Mommaof5- that asthma is so scary. Your poor S. Hope he feels better. And is home soon. </p>
<p>Congrats mommof5 for the YAC group presidency and potential scholarship. Not to look up what a YAC group is. </p>
<p>Congrats YDS on the language club position and national award. So glad to hear S is taking the college exercises seriously.</p>
<p>mommaof5–SCARY! Our boys have asthma as well. Our DS13 has been in the hospital with it a couple times and it’s frightening. The last serious attack happened at a Tae Kwon Do tournament about 7 years ago and I could see from the bleachers that he couldn’t breath. No one else noticed so I ran down there and the guy running their ring starts to yell at me that no parents were allowed. I about slapped him.</p>
<p>I took a 2 1/2 hour nap yesterday, was asleep by 9:30 last night and slept until 6:00 this morning. It stinks getting old but prom wore me out :D.</p>
<p>Busy week with sports this week and then a nice 3 day weekend. SAT scores come out Thursday.</p>
<p>Good morning!</p>
<p>mommaof5, how scary! Sending hugs your way, with hopes that DS gets home soon. Congrats about the track, the election and the scholarship opportunity - wow!</p>
<p>YDS, that’s terrific that DS got that done! I wish my DD would sit down and work on something for that long! She was supposed to do SAT prep this weekend (with all the ACT mess, she is switching gears and focusing on the SAT retake in June.) I don’t think she spent any time on it at all - she went from a softball clinic (instructing little kids) to a “meeting” with her teammates to plan senior day. She didn’t get home til 6, and then had homework to do.</p>
<p>I always have trouble finding the line between encouraging, reminding, nudging, nagging, and overwhelming.</p>
<p>Parent of Class of 2012 popping in! Perhaps this has already been mentioned, but if not it was some of the best advice for a smooth application process:</p>
<p>If your student hasn’t asked a couple of teachers for letters of recommendation, and given them a “Brag Sheet”, see if you can get it done asap! A couple of teacher’s at D’s school like to do them over the summer, when they can really focus on the letters without classes/grading papers/etc. It made things much easier on D in the Fall, knowing this step was already done.</p>
<p>Good luck to all, and don’t forget to take time to just enjoy Senior Year.</p>
<p>BerneseMtn, it must be great to have a GC who’s so helpful!</p>
<p>Walker1194, I completely understand the frustration over rehearsal schedule changes! Both D13 and another student scheduled the May SAT only to find that the director had planned to do a matinee that day! The director claimed that the dates had been set last summer but if so why was the schedule she sent out to everyone different? Fortunately we whisked them off to the matinee right from the SAT venue and they had plenty of time for makeup, etc. I don’t wonder that your DD13b is slamming doors!</p>
<p>mommaof5, I’m sorry about your S’16, what a way to spend the weekend! I hope that he can come home today! Congratulations on your S’13! I’ll keep my fingers crossed for the full tuition scholarship!</p>
<p>Youdon’tsay, great news about your ds2 – both the assignment and the shared presidency! Good for him!</p>
<p>earthmother65, you’re not the only one with rain! I just hope that it disappears by the end of the week when we have to travel to the tennis Provincials. If anything the mainland gets more precipitation than we do and the venue is outdoors!</p>
<p>I’m hoping for a quiet day today, we have a stat holiday and it gives S12 time to work on history essay that he won’t have much time for next weekend and D13 time to study for physics and chemistry. We’ve booked a court indoors for tennis later… now housework? Maybe I’ll try to avoid it a little longer!</p>
<p>I was gone for 3 days and can’t keep up with all the posts! We were in DC for older D’s graduation. Beautiful weekend, and made me calmer about the process for D’13. Older D was rejected from some colleges, and ended up loving where she attended. She took advantage of everything the school and city offered and had a great experience. It reminded me that they can be happy and successful at a variety of schools.</p>
<p>Morning all! I DID say hi to Mickey and Minnie for all of you, but I actually stumbled upon Hollywood Studio’s STAR WARS weekend (I didn’t realize it was this past particular weekend) and the hilarity of that was delightful. It was over 90 degrees so I almost died of a heat stroke, but I did get to see both Chewbacca and Darth Vader! LOL The “special guest star” of the day was the guy whom apparently played “Darth Maul” in one of the “prequel movies” (I didn’t see that series) and I found that hysterical because I believe Darth Maul wears a pretty extensive costume, so how would everyone know that THIS guy was really the REAL Darth Maul? LOL </p>
<p>You haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen 1000+ STAR WARS nerds all pushing each other to take a photo with the actor whom allegedly played “Darth Maul.” Even funnier were the other “guest stars” whom were all voice actors for the STAR WARS the Clone Wars cartoon series (something else I haven’t seen.) I laughed out loud when the announcer of the parade (yes, there was a STAR WARS parade!) was announcing these voice actors’ credits and he read one as “the voice of Perry the Platypus.” If any of you (or your kids) watch “Phinneas and Ferb” on the Disney Channel, you’ll know that Perry doesn’t speak and doesn’t make any noise except an odd chattering sound every now and then. I just HAD to call H (whom was golfing) and say that I just saw the guy whom was the ‘voice’ of a pretty much mute character! LOL!! </p>
<p>At any rate, I did not die of heat stroke (it felt close…) and I did have a really great time - even though I was not dressed as Princess Leia - ha - so all’s well that ends well. </p>
<p>Walker - I am so sorry about the GC situation. Step-D’s school took the school librarian (yes the librarian) and asked her if she’d like to be the GC! WT Heck??? She’s terrible. We are doing most of it ourselves (I have a background in guidance so that makes us a feel a bit more confident) but even so, I have hired an independent counselor friend of mine to help us with the essay review process and just to make sure that all of the Common App stuff is done and correct. With H and I living 1000 miles away from Step-D and with her really having no other support in this area, we absolutely needed another ‘team member’ to assist us with all of the paperwork, deadlines, etc. </p>
<p>If anyone in VA would like my friend’s info, she has a college admissions and private HS guidance background and so far, we’ve been really pleased with her frank advice She has her own Naviance program as well so we don’t feel like there’s any reason we have to deal with the librarian ( oops I mean college counselor…rolleyes here…) at Step-D’s school. </p>
<p>momma - SO SORRY to hear about the asthma attack! One of my friends in HS lost her little brother to a bad asthma attack and it was the first time that I had the knowledge that this condition could be deadly! It was very very sad. So glad your S is on the mend and that he’ll be able to come home soon! </p>
<p>STEVE - Do you have any idea if the SAT2’s come out on Thursday as well, or just the regular SATs? Also - hilarious that prom wore you out! Actually, I shouldn’t laugh. After the elaborate teacher appreciation shindig, I went back to our home in FL and slept for 2 hours! I guess I’m right there with you! </p>
<p>Happy Monday all. MTOBEIYF!</p>
<p>mommaof5 - sending healing vibes your way. Glad good stuff is happening for your older son.</p>
<p>YDS - they surprise you sometimes, don’t they. good for your son for taking this all seriously. It will pay off. And congrats to your son on being Pres. and the award.</p>
<p>SteveMA - feeling your pain. We did the prom hosting thing and I was tired until Tuesday, even with the Sunday power nap.</p>
<p>Mom2M - thanks for that advice. I know my son has figured out which teachers he wants to ask for LORs and was waiting until after AP testing to approach them</p>
<p>Thanks to all for the book award discussion. I had never heard of these before it came up here. The awards ceremony is this Thursday and S '13 was informed he would be receiving an award. Perhaps he’s getting one of these book awards? Guess I’ll have to wait until Thursday to find out.</p>
<p>Started using a net price calculator last night :(. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for merit $$.</p>
<p>I knew the streak of good luck had to end – home today with food poisoning, no doubt from the club banquet! He’s curled in my bed right now, catching up on much-needed sleep.</p>
<p>Anniezz- The CTCL Fair was all right. The presentation was just okay, IMO. It was a half hour and then after that there was a college fair. But my D did get to talk for a while with the folks there at St 0, which is good, and one of them was a social work major, which D wants to do, so that was an extra bonus. But, St 0 is a financial reach for us and D has to get some merit money to attend. Based on the literature they handed out, that might not happen. So we’ll see. The other good thing was the the Rep she had met before at 0WU was there and she is a big fan of that school. He remembered her and even which class she had stayed to attend so that was a plus as well. I think she is pretty “schooled” out right now though. Plus, she was so tired from Prom and her sleepover.</p>
<p>Hey SteveMA- No one gave me the memo on Proma being a choice! Next time let me konw, would ya? Prom was good but I had to sit through some post-prom Proma talk. Seems it is resolved but still… And it is always the boys’ fault! ;-)</p>
<p>YDS- sounds like a very busy and exciting year shaping up for your S! You will have to let us know how the run for Student Body president goes! Glad he got that big project done and worked hard on it. Bodes well for college! Hope you can save some of what he wrote for sniffling over later.</p>
<p>MegPmom- I snorted with laughter over your S finding “some girl” to do his laundry and your subsequent realization that the “some girl” had once been you! lol I think this generation of guys will have a harder time finding a girl to wash their laundry!</p>
<p>Walker- not a lot of action in our school re: GC either. Given the small size of the school, it’s kind of ridiculous.</p>
<p>Mommaof5- Congrats on S13’s track qualification but OMG how scary for S’16! I’m so sorry to read about his bad asthma attack. That is frightening! 
And super kudos for S’13 on the other great news as well! Super!</p>
<p>Thanks for popping in with the reminder about rec, Mom2M! Always helpful to get advice from those who went before!</p>
<p>Laurendog- (will I <em>ever</em> stop typing your name as Laurengod? lol) I was giggling at your comment about Disney. Not knowing you are walking into Star Wars nerds would be quite frightening! I know someone who is a TOTAL Star Wars person and he lives for that stuff. I was cursing Disney this morning as I was trying to get our Meal Reservations made. You can reserve 180 days in advance of your trip and I was trying to get a couple of hard to get reservations. I was up at 5:15 AM! Got everything finished by 7:30. :-)</p>