@homerdog: In honor of your son’s decision, I just had two lobster tails & coffee for breakfast. Congratulations !
@Publisher Lol! S19 is over the moon. I never banked on him being so excited about any one school but it seems to have happened. Lobster for breakfast…hahahahahahahha
@dfbdfb my wife and I will be empty nesters in a few months. As soon as the kids go back to school I am taking a camping trip in the mountains, traveling from hut to hut. After I get back I’ve scheduled myself for some needed surgery. Then after that my wife and I are taking a trip together.
I’ve basically planned out most of my weekends in the Fall already 
Congrats to @EganAg , fine choices indeed!
The past few days of spring break are driving home (literally) the potential joys of the empty nest. I spend an additional half hour in the morning getting the kid to school. Leaving half an hour earlier translates to beating some traffic and getting to the office 45 minutes earlier. So I can leave 45 minutes earlier, missing more traffic and getting home an hour earlier in the afternoon.
So I’ll have a ton of extra time to do… something. Still at a loss for that.
Double congrats to @EganAg!!! Both of these amazing colleges were high up on my D19’s list.
I noticed that I missed @firstwavemom in my previous congratulations, so I’ll add them now.
@ninakatarina - native plant gardening!
My wife may be taking a job in a different city, so we may be spending the first year or so of our empty-nesthood moving and establishing a life elsewhere.
I just started reading this thread today. (Where have I been?) My D committed to Tufts last night. It’s been a long year! @RightCoaster, I’ve only seen a few of your posts but it looks like your son may be going there as well. We went to Jumbo Day this past Friday, 4/19. It’s wonderful that D is happy and this long, brutal process is finally over!
PS - She’s still on one waitlist, but I think she’s ready to move on.
I managed to get through last summer with no kids home the majority of the time without getting too bored. I know I took the dog on a lot of walks. And there were still schools to research then. I used to quilt, before my oldest became mobile. Not really interested in taking that up again.
I know when I went to college, my parents were more than ready- they’d been raising kids for 31 years. But I’m only 42 and will have had kids at home for just 20 years. Wow, that sounds like a long time but it doesn’t feel like it!
Congratulations, @Doublekk2!!
Congrats on all of the good news! It’s so fun to see it all come together.
@Doublekk2 Welcoms! And congratulations on your daughter’s decision!
@momzilla2D Thank you so much!
My D was born in Florida and has lived here all her life. Any tips on getting her ready for the extreme change in winter weather are appreciated!
Congrats to everyone on their kids’ decisions! My D19 long since decided on Parsons but is now going through the housing choice process. She started chatting with another woman she met via the Facebook group and found they had some interesting parallels: Both originally moved to London because of their mother’s work, both attended the same American school there for a time, both are entering the same relatively small major at Parsons and the other person’s family is now moving to the same New York suburban area we moved away from six years ago. And it turned out I know her father from a London trailing-dads group I still keep up with—I’ll see him on the group’s annual European guys’ trip next month. So the D19s have decided the universe is telling them something, and they’re going to room together. Hope they hit it off in person as well as they have so far.
Like the other family, we’re also ending our expat years. We’ve come to Boston this week from Switzerland for house hunting, and will tour our first places tomorrow. Wish us luck!
@Doublekk2, from someone living in a properly cold-weather region (Alaska), I’ll offer the one huge piece of advice I wish I’d been given: Buy your cold-weather gear in the location she’ll be (not in Florida), if possible go to a specialty shop for it (we have a local chain that sells outdoor work gear that I quite like, f’rex), no matter where you go ask for help picking stuff out, and don’t make that a part of your budget where you’re trying to save pennies.
@dfbdfb Thanks so much for the advice! My D wears shorts and flip flops year round, but is looking forward to experiencing seasons (at least for now ?). She is already wondering if students wear jeans all the time when it’s cold and if jeans provide the warmth needed. I’m proud of her for the adventure she’s embracing by choosing a college in a completely different geographic area. (She had options in the southeast that would have posed a less drastic change). Thanks, again!
@Doublekk2 My daughters typically wear leggings in winter. Jeans occasionally, but mostly leggings.
@momzilla2D Thanks! My daughter will be happy to hear that!
@Doublekk2 My kids take after me and can’t stand jeans (which is unthinkably weird to everyone else, but still true). Lined leggings are great, but just regular leggings under anything else also work on the really cold days. They just layer as needed and then strip off the outer layers when they are indoors. As my girls have gotten older, they have less true “winter” coats and more warm, waterproof jackets that they layer over hoodies. (Edited to add a cautionary note. My kids are used to cold temps and consider anything above 40 degrees F to be “warm” and “shorts weather.”)
Waterproof, functional boots are very important, IMO.
For students needing winter wear, even near a college in a colder climate, stores usually haven’t started to stock winter clothing when school starts in Aug/Sept. You can try stores/online REI, North Face, LL Bean, Lands End, and backcountry.com.
We are from Ga and my D17 is in college in New York. She mostly layers and doesn’t complain about the cold too often. I waited until November of freshman year when Lands End was having a sale and shipped her a nice parka that she said is super warm. I also got her some Lands End long underwear for super cold days.
More info on “waterproof, functional boots,” please! What brands are popular/comfortable?