I was in Silicon Valley (CA) this past weekend for a family event. Coming from Central Texas the cool weather was glorious but that is where the glory ended. I don’t miss anything about that area: the traffic, smog, trash littering the highways, weeds growing along the roads, awful drivers, stupid expensive groceries and the oh so confusing recycling parameters. LOL, My son and I standing in my Brothers kitchen staring at the 3 compartment recycle/trash/compost bins trying to sort out what does where…
My Bro is an IT guy who received his education from the military and tech school. At 50 he decided to return to school and was awarded his AS, CIS, MCSE - the graduation was at the 2 hour mark before the recognition of the graduates began. Ugh… there were 480 graduates - the crowd was approx 6K people complete with their air-horns and various noise makers. Thank goodness Bro was 17th in line and was able to talk his way out of the masses that were supposed to sit thru the entire ceremony, we escaped the chaos.
My son is a traveling PT - he is currently on assignment in N. Calif and so he came down for the weekend. I’d not seen him in a year (way too long) it was great to hug him!
Meanwhile back at the homestead - DD returned from orientation and received her housing assignment over the weekend. She is thrilled with her roomies as one is someone she met at orientation whom she clicked with. She is in the hall and on the floor she wanted. I was in California trying to pull up the housing diagrams on my phone screen so my family could all look at where she will be.
I returned home in time to pack up DD and take her off to Girl Scout camp where she is on staff for the summer. As she says, the time will fly because “camp time” is not real time, it flies by.
She will be home occasional Saturdays until the end of July and then home about a week before we head out to take her to school.
Wow…the end of an era is a few Saturdays and a week away :((
@TexasMom18 - LOL “early onset senioritis.” S18 has had regular-timing but very strong senioritis, I believe accelerated by girlfriend, not ex. Boy teenager has been more challenging than older sister in our house.
Just got an email from College Board about when AP results will come out. So freaking happy to be free of all the worry about test score results and college applications/decisions.
@SnowflakeDogMom, welcome to my world (Silicon Valley traffic, smog, trash, weeds, drivers . . . )! There is a lot I love about the Bay Area, but there’s a lot to hate, too, especially when you factor in the average housing cost of $1.2M plus.
One of my primary motivations behind encouraging my son to explore OOS colleges was the hope that he might find another area of the country he could get familiar with. It didn’t pan out that way, at least not for now. I guess there’s always grad school!
Congrats and condolences on your move toward the end of an era.
We are getting ready for a family vacation to a lake house in GA, then I will go with S18 to orientation. He just took required math and music theory placement tests, and is knee deep in thank you notes for graduation gifts. At the moment, his summer schedule has been: sleep until noon, read texts from his parents listing the things he has to do that day, fight with his parents about what he should accomplish that day (or not accomplish), grudgingly do as little as possible, go to friend’s house and play video games, come home for dinner, go out with friends until really late, fight with his parents about when he is coming home, come home 15-30 minutes later than promised, sleep and repeat.
My S is not doing the college summer meet and greets, so his schedule is as follows: wake up early (he never woke up before 10 while in homeschool and he knows college will have morning classes), pray/write in journal, practice piano, study Japanese and German (he’ll take a college placement test for German in June), attend evening martial arts class, play video games, pray/write in journal, sleep. Repeat the next day. Serve daily Mass if scheduled.
It’s been fun being home with him. Hubby is still working for the summer and the youngest is at daily martial arts camp.
@pickledginger I grew up in East San Jose - I won’t even go there now. My Bro lives in Campbell.
I was really surprised at the trash/weeds along all the roads - while I have not lived in the Bay Area in 30 years, I was fairly close by until 6 years ago and we went “over the hill” on a regular basis. I don’t remember the area being so darn trashy. Maybe it always has been or maybe Texas highways and clean roadways have just become my norm.
The speaker at commencement noted the average housing costs is now $1.3M - I know what my Bro paid and I know how huge his mortgage is for his not so huge 1/2 of a duplex (I try to lure him to Texas every chance I get).
My DS has returned to the west after graduate school here in Texas (that was just a fluke of where he got into PT schools) however, I am not sure he will ever return. I don’t think he will stay in CA as he takes assignments there but N. Nevada (Reno/Carson City) are where he calls home.
I gotta laugh…my kiddo is an A-/B+ average kinda kid. She finished this last 9 weeks and this semester/year with her best grades ever; all A’s all year. Too bad she missed the train junior year because these senior year grades really made no difference in her applications (which were all submitted by mid/late October). But she was thrilled and I am proud of her strong finish. I honestly attribute the up tick in her GPA this year to her lack of stress about her gpa for college applications and settling into the routine of mostly AP classes. I don’t feel it is necessary to take a bunch of AP classes for college admissions (she ultimately had 9) but I do think that there is some value in taking several at a time, in that it can prepare the students for what is expected at a collegiate level, it is like practicing for college.
My 19, almost 20 year old: Working in the supermarket he’s been at for 5 years. Taking an EMT class for the fire department. Joining the family 3 days into our Disney trip, since EMT is taking a break for most of the same week we’ll be at Disney. Yay, we really didn’t think this would work out.
My 18 year old: Working at the Italian Ices place she’s been at for 4 years. Also working as a cashier at a diner. Enjoying this last summer before college, hoping for lots of beach time. Also planning to put together a “cute” college wardrobe, and to find “cute” clothes for Disney.
My 15 year old: Working at the same Italian Ices place as her sister since March. Has made a really nice group of friends this year; her old group kind of splintered when her oldest friend moved away 2 months ago. But I really, really like this new group. They’re less focused on looking cool (and on traveling the school going to the bathroom every period to get out of class— funny the things they’ll say in your car when you’re driving.) The new crowd is just a group of fun, nice kids. One of them has her Quincierra in August, that should be fun. Oh, and my daughter has to start planning her Sweet 16 for next February.
All in all, it looks like a fun, relaxing summer for my kids, with a healthy amount of work thrown in.
My graduating daughter is still in school (maybe not mentally since grades closed on Tuesday;). Final school ballet showcase is done. It was well done and they gave the graduating seniors a bow on stage and brought them all roses. NHS dinner is done. Prom and beach weekend are done. Dorney Park (amusement park) day scheduled for tomorrow.
My sister is getting married next Friday, June 8th (both girls in wedding). We are hosting a dinner in our community garden on that Thursday, June 7th. My daughter has her final showcase for the dance school where she trains (outside of her Performing Arts School) on Saturday the 9th. There are 2 performances and then will take a bunch of my family in for the wedding out to dinner.
I somehow have my new German brother-in-laws mom staying with us from the 3rd to the 6th. She sounds lovely but speaks no English. That week is crazy. She leaves Wednesday for an air bnb and my mom comes in on Thursday for the wedding weekend. My brother and niece will also fly in on Thursday and he just texted that he expects to stay the weekend, too. He also thinks someone should pick them up from the airport, but we will all be setting up in the community garden for the rehearsal dinner. My family dynamics are a bit frustrating.
It’s getting really real for these kids. Life as they have known it is ending.
S is spending lots of time with his chorus friends, some of them he will see at college, some only during breaks.
I got him to fill out the last scholarship application that was due today, for the weekend I’m hoping to get math placement test and loan entrance counseling and MPN done.
We will need to report outside scholarships to his college.
@mommdc . thank you for the offer, but I’m really hoping my sister and her husband, who live half a block away, are around to help her out, because we will all be in work/school during the day, lol. They can drag the poor woman around while they finalize wedding plans. They actually had their civil ceremony in Germany, but are having a religious wedding here.
DD was at awards night last night, two & half hours. She was to receive a pin for art and it seemed like a awful long time to sit for that! Well, almost at the very end of the night, the school announced they were bequeathed a rather large amount of money to be used for scholarships in computer science.
DD’s named was called! I couldn’t believe it, nor could she, she thought she heard wrong and her classmates had to tell her to go get her award. (her first year in CS and I know the teacher was impressed and even suggest CS to her)
Only problem is the envelope was empty. She had to go into school today to see what she might have received. There were awards from $50 to $6000, so it really could be anything.
She is hoping it is enough to get a good laptop, as the one she had now is literally duck taped.
And that’s a wrap! Graduation was Saturday morning and party completed that evening. Now, it’s time to get her ready to move to Duke in August. Then, I can focus on my DD 2022.
