<p>Glad to hear all the discussion of high tech apparel (REI, Northface, Columbia, New Balance, Under Armor) on behalf of my textile engineering majoring son.
His major has been an education for me.</p>
<p>Just about an hour until we are tied up in port. All passengers are able to stay on tonight and disembark in the morning.
The Captain is having a farewell cocktail party with lots of edibles up on the pool deck beginning at midnight. There will be plenty of champagne and other adult beverages available. Tomorrow morning there will be a buffet breakfast in the main dining room with open seating. All students are expected to wear their new logo college gear. The room attendants will be picking up any luggage you don’t want to carry off so please have all of those bags tagged and in the hall outside of your cabin by 2 AM.</p>
<p>The winners of the Margarita machines will be announced in the morning. Yes, Margarita machine<a href=“s”>size=5</a>[/size]. We have three of them. SURPRISE!! Once the winners are determined and identified, we will need addresses for shipping the machines to your homes.</p>
<p>Now that our annual SS Indecision 2014 cruise has come to a close, the Captain and crew want to wish everyone best wishes for a great graduation season and a successful college shopping summer. Speaking from experience, the time will go faster than you expect. Our D moves in and begins NSO in only 101 days!</p>
<p>Congratulations @seattlemom on the Chapman decision!</p>
<p>@Mrspepper - Hooray! It may have been a long time coming, but it’s a great decision. ND sounds like an ideal fit for your S. Now you can breathe and enjoy a cocktail!</p>
<p>@NewHavenCTmom - LOL. I had that very experience with my S. I found his nice navy blazer, dress slacks, ties, etc. all on the floor of his dorm room closet. </p>
<p>Congrats Mrs. Pepper – too funny that he ended up choosing an EA school – but at least he knows he had options, and chose the best fit. </p>
<p>I’ll join the “never heard of Jack Rogers, Lily Pulitzer or Vineyard Vines” camp. Since I’m also in California, I guess that’s not surprising. My girls wear a lot of Old Navy (affordable, easy styles, and plenty of 100% cotton) with a bit of Hot Topix, Forever 21 ($3 tank tops are a big favorite for layering), and TJ Maxx. We live in a small town, so not a lot of options. Hollister was really big here a few years back, but my girls hated that store. Oh, and Aeropostale for jeans – they have frequent $10 jean sales. I don’t think this area is particularly brand conscious, and quirky is the norm at their HS.</p>
<p>Okay, Okay, I am coming down. It’s still the 30th right? Payment to Vandy was indeed submitted. Kind of tired (and seasick) now, so I will look at the dorm stuff tomorrow. This group is the best traveling companion.</p>
<p>Well, with @mrspepper and @4beardolls having put deposits down (at two totally wonderful schools), I think it’s a wrap. </p>
<p>Congrats to all… </p>
<p>I want to thank the Captain, AvonHSDad. He’s been an excellent host on a long voyage. I hope everyone made it safely to port. What a ship, what a crew, and what terrific passengers. Now we all get to start looking for XL sheets, the perfect small dorm room fan, and reinforcing the painful reality of an incredibly small dorm closet. Hope we can continue to travel together through this next phase. Aloha.</p>
<p>I second the kudos to our captain AvonHSDad! What a wonderful trip. we just received the email to set up D’s College email, housing selection etc. a happy sad moment. going to Target today to do some more shopping. </p>
<p>so glad for all the cyber friends I met here who are going through the same thing as I am!</p>
<p>@crowlady and @4beardolls CONGRATS! Woot!</p>
<p>@AvonHSDad Thank you for organizing the cruise. It’s been fun (even if I was serving drinks the whole time)!</p>
<p>Glad everyone seems to have made it to port safely. A few er stops on the way but hopefully @staceyneil and @3tallblonds are recovering quickly. Glad to have sailed with all of you. See you at Bed, Bath Beyond with coupons.</p>
<p>@4beardolls, Congratulations!!! Not only do you get to take home the margarita machine for being the last one on board, but you decided on a great school!!! Welcome to shore and come join us over on the Vandy Parents Class of 2018 thread where we are all preparing for our future in Nashville and planning our next CC get together on campus! It’s been a wild ride everyone. Thanks to all!</p>
<p>Congratulations to all on reaching the end of this cruise! I will sure miss those margaritas.</p>
<p>We wear lots of different brands in our house! With two athletes we’ve of course got all the inevitable Under Armour, Adidas, and Nike gear. Then there’s the Old Navy/Gap/American Eagle casual wear. Vineyard Vines/Lily/Vera Bradley, et al. for a slightly more polished, but still casual look. Suits and more formal stuff I get at Nordstrom with no particular brand loyalty. That’s where DH bought his tuxedo many moons ago. I buy boots and outer wear from Lands End and LL Bean, but we also have a collection of North Face and Columbia stuff. We also have quite the collection of gear from Think Geek, et al. (Think Geek is a local company and comes to DS’s school every year and sponsors the finals of the freshman robotics competition). DH was a math major and proudly sports his e and pi t-shirts!</p>
<p>Bottom line, we have too many clothes!</p>
<p>Congrats @mrspepper and @4beardolls (& and EVERYONE of you wonderful people)! Wow - what a ride.</p>
<p>Last night we attended the Seniors & Parents dinner - they had three huge projection screens with rotating freshman/senior portraits of every member of the class - so fun. The students voted on a faculty member to address them as the keynote. last chorus concert tonight. Exams then graduation in three weeks. Yikes!</p>
<p>Congratulations @4beardolls on the Vandy decision!!</p>
<p>Thank you Captain for a great cruise!</p>
<p>I don’t think we have a senior recognition ceremony – big public school and too many to recognize for a single event. Instead, there are smaller sessions. Athletic Boosters will have an evening event, as will Academics and Arts too. They are coordinated so no conflicts among the three.</p>
<p>Do your schools have Senior Superlatives? The categories at DS’s school are amusing. There’s a category for Most Likely to be a Pro Gamer, for example. DS tells me that he has been nominated for at least two categories – Most Likely to be an Herbal Essence Model (best hair) and Biggest Flirt, ack!</p>
<p>S tells me he is nominated for Most School Spirit, that’s kinda nice :)</p>
<p>Today is ‘wear your college gear’ day for D’s school - she’s sporting her Temple t-shirt & will get to spend all day answering “Where’s that?” Lol - California kids are pretty much all about the UC’s & unless the name of the school is self-explanatory (e.g. University of Chicago) - it is off their radar.</p>
<p>We are done with all awards programs at school, even though there are still 3 weeks to go. I guess we are early awards, late prom, as ours is the only school in the area that hasn’t had prom yet (this Saturday, the dress is almost done!) We had a big community wide (about 8 high schools) dinner /award ceremony for all seniors with a cumulative 4.0 or higher. It was nicely done, and each student was recognized and received awards from a variety of agencies-- from local assemblymen through state and federal representatives. She enjoyed it more than the HS one, in which a few students received all the awards and scholarships. It can suck to be the art student in a STEM school. </p>
<p>Despite the rough seas, I also want to thank the Captain for guiding us back to port. So happy we will not see a YouTube video of him abandoning ship in his underwear. LOL What a thrill it’s been to have all of you as shipmates. I am so thrilled to see how the next four years unfold for go2girl and all of the other amazing kids in the class of 2014. And I have to say, I’m very excited that I’ll get to meet many of you in person at Family Weekend at Vandy!</p>
<p>S is dressed for a hot college day. High temp is expected to be mid- nineties. He is wearing UCLA tank and matching UCLA fisherman’s hat- very dorky and cute. </p>