My sister is taking D26 on a 10 day graduation trip to 2-3 countries of her choosing in Europe. D26 so far is leaning toward England and Italy. She picked England because she wants to go on a tour of the Churchill war rooms. Italy was chosen for the food.
Some time in August, the 4 of us (D26, D24, Spousal Unit, me) are going to do 2-3 days at Disneyland with a visit to the Reagan Presidential Library at the start of the trip (D26 loves WW2 and Cold War history). Gonna go w/honorary aunt & uncle who are located in southern CA (they live an hour from Disneyland).
AND some time in Oct, my sister and I are doing 5 days at WDW without kids or significant others. Gonna stay in a Savannah view room at Animal Kingdom Lodge. And do whatever the heck we want without anybody else weighing in on each dayās plans! So itāll be a foodie trip, with daily visits to Epcot for the food & wine festival. And Iām gonna drag her to the Magic Kingdom Halloween party. Just have to figure out which dates in Oct. I have a friend whoās a cast member at Animal Kingdom. Hoping maybe we can meet up with her while we are there!
S26 has found a fun summer āprogramā overseas, I say program because it mostly seems to be a bunch of teenagers living together doing some amount of language/culture classes and having fun. We also got him a used car so imo heās set in terms of getting things.
I really want to do an Outlander tour of Scotland, lol. Which is good because DH wants to play as many golf courses there as he can. This needs to be a separate trip without kids.
We were actually just talking about this an hour ago! We are planning a family trip this summer. Not sure to where yet, weāre going to open it up to the kids for suggestions. We want the kids to get some good quality time together before daughter leaves for school.
Mine saved money from her summer job and plans to go to Austria! She is super friendly with a girl who lives there- she was an exchange student at my daughterās school last year and theyāve remained close. Her parents offered for my daughter to stay with them (weāve met them and feel comfortable with them!), so only expense is the flight and some spending money!
We have a couple of trips this year to celebrate her senior year and now I am glad we did it. Since she may wind up (itās likely) as a summer start, there isnāt a lot of time between graduation and the start of college. The plan was a trip to Europe since she has never been. And if we can do it in 10 days somewhere within the 3 weeks she is free, we will try! But I have a feeling those 3 weeks will be a scramble getting everything ready
So D26 had her tea party yesterday with a bunch of friends and it was kind of awesome! Proper tiered cake tray, lots of snacks, and lots of tea. Along with finger sandwiches, she even made her own scones! I was impressed!
And D26s mom noted that it reminded her of her own senior year in high school - just having a bunch of friends over, chitchatting (loudly!) about nonsense, etc. before everyone went out into the world a few months later.
I love this! Itās so fun to be a fly on the wall and just witness their antics, lol.
Neither of my girls were/are super social in high school, but I remember one birthday party when my oldest had a bunch of girls over. They were all chorus kids, so it was the most beautifully sung rendition of Happy Birthday ever, with harmonies and everything.
D26 is even less social, but we did host her band cabinet retreat at our house this summer, which was six kids and two chaperones for a 36-hour lock-in. Holy chaos. She did put a ton of planning into it, though.
And our son, well, itās a lot of basketball and a lot of gaming and a lot of time in the pool with his guys. No finger sandwiches, scones or tea.
Re: college and purpose and ROI. The only advice I have for D26 is āget your degreeā. She worries all the time about whether majoring in film is viable for future employment. I majored in theatre and her father majored in English and guess what? Neither of us is working in our fields of study. But we could not have gotten where we are today without a degree. Now as far as cost and how much is too much- my in-laws funded my husbandās college and I paid for mine. We had serious financial issues for a few years and were unable to save anything so S23 and D26 know they are on their own. (Although we did agree to help with paying loans post-graduation.) D26 is definitely taking cost into consideration, but with her major, there is an importance of where she attends. If she winds up getting into Ithaca, for example, it would probably be a better choice than the state school that sheās been accepted to, even though the state school would be about $15,000 cheaper per year. In this regard, I think ROI is really important. If no Ithaca, then itās a little more in the air. Then it becomes about the intangibles- urban campus vs. suburban; lower number of students vs. higher; more quirky, artistic types vs. comfortable, familiar types of students; less amenities but cheaper vs. nicer facilities but more expensive. The spouse doesnāt want her attending college in a big city, but at the end of the day, if that metropolis is the most active city for film on the east coast, that school needs to be top on the list ESPECIALLY since itās cheaper.
We are not planning any big trips the summer after graduation, except for a few days at the beach. I know D26 will want to work as much as possible to save money for school. The spouse has this idea to drive cross country to Vegas in the fall (without kids obviously)- weāll see.
A couple people mentioned Scotland- if I could live anywhere in the world, it would be there. I went in 2000 and absolutely loved it. I firmly believe that we can āfeelā where we have lived in past lives and that was the Highlands for me.
Lol, I adore a good Scottish accent. We had neighbors from Scotland for a while and the woman, who was from Glasgow had the worst time meeting people because nobody understood her. Her husband, who was from Edinburgh, was much easier to understand.
RE graduation trips: since we have double graduation next year, I booked a family trip to Alaska, flights and a one way cruise are booked. Everything else is still tbd. Luckily I booked the flights on miles and got a good deal on the cruise, because, boy, tours there are expensive!!
How do families figure out if UCB is affordable if housing cost can be from $11k to $21k a year depending on what housing they get? $10k a year is a huge gap. Do families have control over where they end up in this range and can they plan for it when deciding what school to attend?
you pick what you want, so if you put in for a quad itās 11k, if you want a single private apartment then itās 21k. On the tour they said you gotta put in your application early to get the choice you want.
Is this something new? When S23 applied for housing it was simply a lotteryā¦ get your application in by the deadline and hope for the best. Iām wondering if that tour guide was confused.
Many kids do not get the choices they want. My S23 requested a double in dorms that were not the unitsā¦ he ended up with a triple in the units. This is a common outcome because there are lots of triple rooms. The silver lining was that a triple is significantly cheaper than a double, though. It all turned out to be for the best.
I would guess that if a student requests triple or quad, they will get triple or quad. Most students request doubles.
Very possible, UCB had the most number of people from any of the UCs we toured so probably have a lot of students do tours, I estimated about 150-200 people the day we did the tour, UCSBās tour was significantly smaller, UCD even smaller. UCLA we did the self tour and saw so many people with UCLA gear on campus.
My son is a tour guide at UCB. They are extremely well trained, so Iām surprised one would have given incorrect info (especially on something where the student would have personal experience)! They train for a long time before giving tours on their own, have to pass tests to be sure they know all the info, write their own tour script and have it evaluated, etc. I guess itās possible you misheard or confused with another tour somewhere else?
In the US, ANY degree is better than not having one.
D24ās now-former roommate went through a lot of struggles freshman and this 1st half of sophomore year due to some severe health problems. Kid had decided to drop out of college entirely, told D24, āMy parents didnāt go to college, they just graduated from high school and they did ok.ā D24 advised her to talk to her parents about it & ask them how easy (or not) it was. After that talk w/the parents, the roommate decided to withdraw and transfer to another school where she could attend online from home instead.
When S23 applied for housing it was simply a lotteryā¦ get your application in by the deadline and hope for the best. Iām wondering if that tour guide was confused.
