Move In Weekend for the College Boy

Last weekend was move in day at Santa Clara University.  Luckily for us, Stephen had moved in a month ago for polo.  We decided to use the weekend as a time to see him and possibly catch some of their games.  As it turned out though, the team was playing at Cal and it was about 45 minutes away.  Since they were having festivities on campus, Stephen got permission to stay at the school.  We thought it would be a great chance to visit and show the girls a college campus up close.  Turned out we were wrong on both counts.

Stephen's roommate was supposed to move in on Saturday at 8:30 am so we had Friday evening to ourselves.  So when we got there on Friday, we had a quick dinner.  We had called a few places on the way out, but reservations were scarce since parents had all probably arrived that evening.  So we opted for Pizza My Heart right across the street.  It was actually pretty good, although they were packed too.  Then we headed up to his dorm room.  We helped him download some software he needed and then we were just kind of hanging out.  Bill was about ready to head out when Stephen said to us, "um not trying to be mean or anything but what time do you think you'll be heading out.  Some of my girl friends just invited me to go get ice cream with them."  Yeah we can take a hint.  So we all walked out together, he jumped on his longboard and headed out while we headed back to our hotel.  Yeah whatever, so much for missing us.

Saturday was move in day.  He had to be up early anyway so that his roommate could move in, so we headed to Bill's Cafe at 8:30.   Turns out that was a good plan because the place was packed when we left.  We went back to the hotel to pack up and check out.  He went to go meet his roommate and go sign up for ROTC.  Yes he'd decided on Friday before we got there that he is going to do Army ROTC.  I'm not sure how he's going to find the time to add that into his schedule, but we'll just roll with it for now.  Anyway after checking out we decided to go walk around campus with the girls.  Perfect timing, it started POURING!  The only other time they'd been on campus was Stephen's freshman year of high school we'd gone on a tour and yep it rained then too.  We'd gotten all the way across campus when it really started coming down.  We had to duck into the parking garage for about a half an hour since we weren't really dressed for downpour.  We had dinner reservations at 5:45 and could tell it was going to be about all we got from Stephen.  I can totally understand though, the campus was alive with new people and he'd already been having a great time with the people he'd met so far.  So we picked him up at 4:00.  We walked around Santana Row for awhile and then had a really nice dinner.  Afterwards, we brought him back to his dorm, said our goodbyes and started the long drive home.

I don't know.  It wasn't exactly how I'd hoped the weekend would go.  It was so rushed and a little crazy.  But it was great to see him and great to see how much fun he's having.  It would be really hard to leave your child knowing they weren't fitting in or were miserable.  Luckily we didn't have any doubts that he's in a great place.  Now we just have to wait until our next visit.

The picture quality wasn't great, but we were happy to get  a few pics :)

That was his last night of play time.  He started classes today.  In fact, it's 8:00 PM right now and I think he's just getting out of his last class.  Monday is his really long day.  I hope he calls tonight, because I'm anxious to hear what he thought of it all.  But I'll leave that up to him.

Nikki made Captain!

Today was Nikki's first day of tryouts for high school soccer.  They planned to have the girls tryout Monday through Thursday and announce the teams on Friday.  Last night Nikki sent the coach an email letting him know that she'd have to leave early since her club practices conflict and right now club has priority.  He said that was fine and that he needed her to stay after practice today.  We joked and said he wants to make her captain.  She laughed and said that maybe it was captain of the JV team. Which wouldn't be so bad, except she was pulled up to Varsity mid way through the season last year so she was really hoping to play Varsity this year.

She called me after tryouts today to let me know she had to make a stop before heading home.  I asked her what the coach had talked to her about.  She said he'd pulled four girls and asked them if they wanted to be captains.  Weird that he asked, right?  Well the reason being is that two are sophomores, Nikki is a junior and the last girl is a senior.  He told them he understood if it put them in an awkward position and if they didn't want to do it to let him know.  Otherwise he was going to make the announcement tomorrow.   Nikki had second thoughts for all of the reasons the coach had articulated.  But after talking to her, she decided that other people's opinion of her shouldn't stop her from doing something that will be good for her for many reasons.  Many of those reasons, I don't even think she's aware of.  But I can say that I am so excited for her and proud of her!  I can't wait to see what the season has in store!

This is a photo from her club season at a tournament over the summer.

This rather blurry shot was from last year's high school season after she'd gotten pulled up.

New room for Ali

Ali has been on our case about redoing her bedroom.  She keeps close tabs on when her brother and sister got this or that and has decided this is the year she is due a remodel.  For the meantime, she's taken over her brother's room while he's away at college.

Stephen and Nikki both have upgraded to a full sized bed from a twin.  After our last beach day, Ali was so exhausted she didn't want to shower before going to sleep.  I told her to sleep in Stephen's bed since I needed to wash his sheets anyway.  Apparently she slept so well she decided to move in there until she got a bigger bed for herself.

Yesterday she and I headed over to Mathis Bros while Bill and Nikki were in Bakersfield for soccer.  Ali was really leaning towards a canopy bed until we saw what they had to offer.  She didn't love any of them, so we walked the showroom to see what else interested her.  Her first choice was as she called it, "so her".

It was definitely a princess bed.  The outside edge is all mirrored.  Luckily I was able to convince her it would be very limiting for bedding choices.  Plus it was over $2k, so we moved on.

We searched all of the youth beds because those are the only ones available in full sizes.  Unfortunately I think because they were all decorated in kids themes she couldn't find any she liked.  We did find a queen sized bed that she really liked

This one had drawers on the end board that would be great storage for all of the blankets Ali likes to keep.  But after measuring the bed, we have determined there's no way a queen sized bed would fit in her room.  It would literally be all bed.  So our options now are to either find a full sized bed elsewhere or possibly switch her room with Stephen's room.  That would be a lot more work for us, but might be the best option.  As for now, I'm going to keep looking for a full sized bed.  We'll see where this takes us.

Beach Day

Last weekend Nikki had a soccer tournament all weekend and her friend Sydney had her birthday at the beach on Saturday.  We were able to do both, but it wasn't the whole day at the beach we enjoy.  So we talked to Sydney's family and decided we'd all  meet at the beach the following Saturday.

That's exactly what we did!  We didn't get up early, nope we slept in first.  Then we picked up a few of Ali & Grace's friends and headed down to Huntington.  We got there about 11:30 and enjoyed the beautiful day until about 7:00.  After that, we headed over to the pier where we all had Ruby's Diner for dinner.  We rolled in about 10PM and were so happy to have gotten another day at the beach!