@momtogkc you’re lucky you got anything in Yosemite during school vacation, there must have been a last minute cancellation. Hope you have a wonderful trip!
@ninakatarina - I am envious, I love Scotland and can never get enough! I am sure you will have a wonderful time!
I immediately thought of you @ChicagoSportsFn when I heard about the accident at West Point. I can understand your wife’s worried.
Congrats to all for the recent graduations and other good news. Congrats to your son @ninakatarina ! What a difference a day can make in changing the course of a life, huh? I hope he has a wonderful time in Scotland.
I made hotel reservations for move-in weekend and and am looking forward to spending more time in Nashville. S19 is getting ready to register for classes in the next couple of weeks and has to have a pre-registration meeting with an adviser to go over his schedule. It’s exciting but I’m not ready for it.
@parent2one Hah - you sound like a true Floridian with the AC comment!
@ninakatarina That would have been funny if we were there at the same time! We are also visiting my brother as well a high school and college friends in SF (if we can fit them all in!) I hope you find time to make the trip to see your uncle.
@EganAg That’s impressive - I am not talented enough to so a school logo on a cookie!
@SJ2727 I know - I feel so lucky which is why I planned the rest of the trip around Yosemite. We aren’t staying in the park, we are in Yosemite West which I guess is within the gates of the park but not actually the park? Seems like a central location being about 25 minutes from the main valley and 40-50 minutes from both Mariposa Grove and Glacier Point. Tiara Road will probably not be open when we are there so we will stay on that side of the park. We got a great deal on a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house which has laundry and a kitchen so I was happy. Way cheaper than 2 hotel rooms and we have space to spread out.
@elena13 D is getting ready to meet her advisor and schedule classes later this month as well -crazy this is all going so fast!
Graduation tonight. D19 totally nixed the green “school colors” dress for me…
After all the fun and excitement of last night, D19 is down now. Her best friend leaves Sunday for an all-summer job elsewhere, and I think the reality of being far from her closest friends is setting in even though her actual move is still a couple of months away. Will be the second time in 5 years she’s had to move far from her best friends. I’m sure she’ll be fine and make good friends at college - people just seem to really like her and she makes friends easily as a result even though she’s a closet introvert - but I think summer might be somewhere between bittersweet and difficult for her.
@SJ2727 Leaving friends is always difficult, but luckily, keeping in contact is so much more easier today than it was when I was growing up (though nothing can replace the excitement of getting a real letter in the mail).
Today in D19’s graduation party. She is throwing a joint one with her best friend, since they have been best friends since kindergarten. They are as close as sisters (they actually call each other “sister”), and really have grown up in each other’s homes. We lived a block away until they were in middle school (we moved a bit further away when we bight a place) so they had sleepovers often enough to keep toothbrushes and extra clothes in each other’s house, and they would meet and walk to school together. The BFF is really almost like another child for us, and vice versa (we say, not entirely in jest, that we are four parents who raised two kids).
However, they are going to different colleges. The BFF is going to a university in Wisconsin, while D19 is off to Vermont. In addition, it seems that my wife and I may be moving to Ohio for work, so visiting during breaks may not be that easy. Still, both are bright and creative, so they’ll likely figure something out.
I put together a slideshow of photos of the two of them together. Sifting through literally thousands of photos really wasn’t all that pleasant even though it was something of a walk down memory lane. Think 11 years, two only kids (so lots of photos), First play-dates, then hanging out, joint family dinners, seeing shows together, learning dance for a couple of years together (BFF went on to gymnastics instead), school talent shows together, Brownies/GS together, 22 birthdays, a few dozen holidays, including carving pumpkins and trick-or-treating together, four homecoming dances, three graduations, prom, etc. All were photographed because both sets of parents are like that. I had the “joy” of sifting through it all and choosing a couple hundred of the very best.
I found a photo my wife took when they were 6 and 7. We had a lot of dandelions in our backyard, and they both made dandelion crowns. It is Hallmark photo - two little girls with dandelion crowns holding dandelion bouquets.
Yesterday was D’s graduation party. We waited to have it until all the others in the area were done but ran into lots of conflicts (weddings, sports events, out of town graduations). Still, a good turn out and lots of fun. Today, D19, D24, & I flew to D’s college town for Orientation starting tomorrow. Looks like it’ll be rainy & warm-just like what we left at home.
Not much time left for D at home as she will be overseas doing a language intensive most of July & then leaves for college less than two weeks later.
Has anyone else’s kid been doing stuff that makes you go, “Huh?”
I’ve been asking D19 when her math final is (her only non-AP class) because she doesn’t seem to be studying for it at all. She’s been saying she’s not sure but will find out. I figured it would be at the end of regular school, but today it occurred to me that it might be during Regents/exams. Well, I looked it up on the school website and it is during that week, when D19 has committed to a trip with friends in the mountains 8 hours away. They’ve been planning for weeks. How could she have neglected to check the date of her math final?!
Also, she’s had a string of, “I set my alarm but it didn’t go off and I have no idea why”, and she needed to cancel an appointment but didn’t follow through because their phone message was “too confusing”.
Is she just burned out? This is not the time for my competent, responsible daughter to be replaced by a space cadet—on the verge of going off on her own!
This time is overwhelming to even the most mature of teens. Just help her through it as best you can. I wish you both all the best!
Definitely. S19 had an unusual and epic fail a few weeks ago and almost missed his last IB exam. He got through graduation and all is good but is still doing some dumb things. He rode to Michigan with family to visit his dad for a week and then realized (only because I was confirming with him) the night before his flight home that he didn’t have his ID. I definitely told him to bring it on the trip because I knew he would need it to fly. He figured out how to go through a different security process so it worked out but still! Good grief, college is only two months away!
Graduation is over and was great. Thank you school administrators for executing a sweet and very efficient ceremony. D19 and 3 of her friends just embarked on their first solo road trip up and down the California Coast–they’ll be gone 9 days. They really planned this out well, so while part of me is like OH MY GOD, EEEK! the other part of me says, Fly little bird, fly. The goal is for our kids to be able to go out their on their own. This seems like a good start.
It’s been quiet around here lately. We are a few weeks into summer and our schedules are still crazy. D19 has been at Lake Tahoe all week with a friend and their family and is having a great time. She was a little worried because the family is the kind that is constantly on the go and likes to be a little more adventurous than she likes but she is having a great time. They’ve done several hikes, gone kayaking, para sailing, white water rafting (she was the most nervous about that one) and did a sunset cruise. The pictures are beautiful - I’ve never been to Lake Tahoe but now I’d love to visit someday.Tomorrow is the day we fly out to meet her and continue on our own family vacation.
@crknwk2000 The trip sounds fun! Maybe we will see them on the road - we will be driving the coast from about Cambria back up to San Francisco next week. 
We’ve been to Tahoe on a drive through to Reno and it’s quite lovely! We’ve been busy too. D19 is in Sicily sending me gorgeous pictures of the Mediterranean. D20 has her spring recital this Sunday and then we leave right from the theater to take her to a dance intensive in another state. I’m trying to plan impossibly cheap lodging for our trip to California in September to visit schools while negotiating with our insurance company- and we bought a new car in another state that we need to pick up Monday. Next week and the week after are blissfully kid free. I’m going to go to dinner and a movie with my husband, sleep in, and clean everything.
@momtogkc your daughter’s trip to Tahoe with her friend’s family sounds AMAZING. Definitely try to get to Tahoe sometime. It really is stunning. Have a great road trip. Hopefully while you’re here we won’t have another heat wave and we’ll be back to more pleasant 65-75 degree weather 
@milgymfam what cities will you be staying at in California in September? Maybe you can get some affordable lodging suggestions from some of us California CC folks.
D19 graduated today! Hallelujah!
This has been a very busy and stressful week.
Sat - day 2 of terrible sore throat for D19, Dr visit and strep test, put on antibiotics
Sun - feeling better but got a rash from antibiotics, strep test not positive, changed antibiotics, voice recital that night for D19 & D20 (yes, D19 performed)
Mon - prom, D19 & D20
Tues - visited Tufts with D20
Wed - Graduation rehearsal and Baccalaureate for D19 (D20 performed in string quartet)
Thur - Graduation for D19
Fri - D19 leaves for school trip to France/Women’s World Cup, the rest of us off to Philly to visit schools w D20
Can’t wait for some downtime. Maybe in a week?
@crknwk2000 My brother lives in San Francisco and I’ve been teasing him about your “heat wave” this week. I live in south Florida so we are in the 90’s every day. I know most people there don’t have air conditioning though so that is a huge difference!
@momzilla2D Congratulations! Sounds like you had a crazy week. That is awesome that D19 gets to go to France and see the World Cup!!
@crknwk2000 we are planning on one of the SoCal beaches, Sierra Madre, and the East Bay. We have lived in two of those places so I know there really is no such thing as cheap ways to stay in Cali… so I resigned myself to as cheap as possible and booked some Airbnbs. Still searching for something beachy and hoping we have luck when we are able to book on Pendleton. I thought I would be able to save up for some of these nights in a hotel but car accidents are also expensive. Our airfare is non-refundable though, so I’m pushing through. I’m hoping to visit Cal Lutheran and Mills while we are there, visit old haunts, and celebrate D20’s sixteenth birthday (it’s a month later) at the beach. It’s her happy place.
@momzilla2D just reading all that you have going on had me take a nice big gulp of my rosé. I suggest some rosé for you, too ; )
@momtogkc yep, NO AIR CONDITIONING in our 1940 home in the Oakland Hills. I feel your bro’s pain. I was DYING. Like it made me a crazy woman. Thank god our friend Karl the Fog is back. Phew.
@milgymfam i’m going to DM you with some ideas for the East Bay at least.
D graduated yesterday. It’s over. I don’t have to deal with high school matters anymore.
I learned a lot about my daughter when reading comments from her teachers and friends in her yearbook.
She will continue work on her part-time job to save money for Europe trip with older sister later (not quite materialized yet).
Congratulations to all kids who have graduated.