Nikki's Senior Photo

Oh my gosh, what a fun day!  Nikki wanted to do her senior pics down at the beach.  It was a challenge to find a date that worked for both Michelle (our photographer) and us.  But we did it & headed down to Balboa to meet her for Nikki's photos.  She didn't disappoint!  She's been there before so she had some favorite locations she wanted to hit.  But then we just wandered around and as she'd see something interesting, we'd stop and take some shots.  I had a really hard time picking my favorite one.  There were so many that I loved!  I'll just try to narrow it down as much as I can :)

I love all of them & had a great time following along watching Michelle in action!

A Short Visit with Stephen

Nikki had a 5 day weekend this past weekend.  St. Lucy's always takes Valentine's Day off.  Sister Helen couldn't take the barrage of deliveries for the girls from both boys and parents.  So she made it a holiday.  Well then the deliveries started coming on the 13th.  So guess what?  Yep they get that day off too!  Gotta love her.  So that gave us Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Plus both girls were off on Monday for President's Day.  We decided to take advantage of it and pull Ali out of school on Friday and head up the coast.  We wanted to tour some colleges along the way and get in a visit with Stephen.

We left Friday morning and arrived at Cal State Channel Islands for our 11am tour.  The school was very nice.  Bill really liked it, and I think both girls did as well.  The one downfall is they don't have any sports programs.  They have club sports though so it's still a consideration.

From there, we headed into Santa Barbara for lunch.  We walked awhile on State Street and had a great pizza lunch.  Then it was time to jump back in the car for a long stretch.  Our next stop was Monterey.  We arrived, checked into our hotel and headed to dinner.  I'd made a reservation since it was Valentine's Day and we weren't sure what kind of crowds would be there.  I picked a place called Lalapalooza.  It had good reviews and it was in the little downtown and not near Fisherman's Wharf so I thought we'd be okay.  It was a great choice.  Not crowded, good meal and we walked from the hotel.

The next morning, we had another 11am tour.  This one at Cal State Monterey Bay.  This is the school that has been great about communicating with Nikki about soccer.  They've seen her play a few times and have told her they like what they see.  Unfortunately she's had several girls tell her not to go there.  They've said it's all concrete and super ugly since it's an old Army base (Fort Ord).  Needless to say, I'm glad I forced her to check it out.  She and Ali both loved it.  It's near the beach, has bigger dorm rooms and is really spread out over a large area.  Plus it helped that we had an awesome tour guide.  

This was the new library.  Many of the buildings had been converted from the Army base.  But the new buildings have been built using 80% recycled materials from the base.  It was really neat to hear the history of some of the buildings.

After our tour, we stopped and had lunch near the water.  There were a bunch of seals out on the dock so we watched them awhile too.  From there, we headed to UC Santa Cruz.  Nikki really wanted to check out their campus, but I wasn't able to set up a tour.  They only do weekday tours and were closed on Monday due to the holiday.  So we had planned to just do a walking tour.  But by the time we arrived and saw what hill the campus was on, we decided a driving tour would be just fine.  It's a pretty campus, but is much harder to get into.  So Nikki is going to keep it on her list of "maybes".  

From there we headed to Santa Clara.  We knew we wouldn't see Stephen until morning, so we just had a nice dinner and shopped around at Santana Row.  We stayed at the hotel right on Santana Row this time.  I'd seen it before and had thought it'd be a fun place to stay.  It was perfect.

The next morning, we picked Stephen up and headed into San Francisco.  He had kept the day open for us.  So we went into town and ate at Gotts Roadside.  Yes we'd planned our entire day around that meal.  It consisted of hamburgers, fries and shakes for $110!  Although I got the ahi burger, and it was delicious.  Then we walked down to Pier 39 and did lots of people watching.  Of course we had to stop by and see all of the seals there too.

The visit seemed way too fast, but I did get to ask him all of the questions I'd been wanting to ask.  I am just so proud of how hard he's working and the direction he wants to go.  He is loving everything they're doing in ROTC and is working really hard to earn a scholarship.  He showed me the two badges he's earned already.  One was for scoring 290 on the PT test and the other was for German Armed Forces Military Proficiency.  Now he just needs the uniform to be able to put them on!  It sounds like school is going okay and polo is too.  Although he thinks his time is limited for playing polo.  He sees  how busy school and ROTC get junior year and is concerned.  We told him to take it one year at a time and see how it goes.

Monday morning we woke up early.  Stephen forgot to give me a form he needed me to take to the bank for signatures and was leaving at 7:30 to work in a VA hospital.

Then we had breakfast at Stephen's favorite breakfast place, Bill's Cafe.  It was a yummy way to begin our long ride home.  I did enjoy the beautiful blossoms on the trees along the way, although felt really bad about all of the bees that splattered on our windshield!

Overall it was a very successful trip for both college tours and visiting Stephen.  Hopefully he'll be able to come home for spring break.  Otherwise we won't have him back here until the END of summer.  Boo!!

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.

Fun Stuff at Polo Practice

Last night was the night we were set to host dinner for Stephen's water polo team up in Santa Clara.  When I got a text from him around 5:30, I thought it was going to be a question about the dinner.  Turns out he was texting to let me know his front tooth had been knocked out at practice.  No it's not the first time and no it probably won't be the last time.  My initial reaction was frustration that he probably wasn't wearing his mouthguard.  I finally got him to call me and he said he was wearing his mouthguard, but that his teammate had elbowed him just right.  He said his reaction was to spit his mouthguard out when it happened.  Which then caused his tooth to sink to the bottom of the pool.  I asked him what his coach said.  He said he told him to put some goggles on and find the tooth.  Here's an old photo of Stephen without his tooth when he was still wearing a flipper retainer instead of the bridge.

He said the real bummer is that the dentist up there can't see him until Tuesday.  So he gets to go the whole weekend looking like the photo above.  I told him to get a flipper retainer made for these kind of emergencies but he hated the flipper so much that he says he'd rather deal with the toothless smile.  My only concern is that his teeth will shift.  But what am I to do at this point, he's a man now and has to make these decisions.  Oh the joys.

1st day of school

It was another year of staggered starts for the kids.  I actually like it because it gives me some individual time with all three.  But it cuts the summer short 3 weeks on each end because we can't take a vacation with one still in school.  It's also a bit of a bummer for the first one to start school because we usually stay on vacation until the day before the first one starts.

This year Nikki was the lucky first one.  Luckily she wears a uniform to school so there wasn't any back to school shopping to be done.  The other plus was that she's driving now so when they got the school supply lists she was able to meet her friends at Target and all get their shopping done without me.  Yay for that because I hate school supply shopping.  Her friends drove over on the first morning of school and carpooled.  They were so adorable.  It's hard to believe they're already juniors in high school!

Nikki, Cassie and Jenny

The next one to start school was Stephen.  Well I take that back, he left for school but did not start.  He had to report in to Santa Clara for water polo on 8/21 even though school didn't start until 9/23.  So we jumped on a plane, stopped by Bed, Bath & Beyond and picked up all of his dorm gear and moved him into his temporary dorm.  He'll be there until 9/12 and then he'll move into his permanent dorm.  He'll have a few weeks alone and then his permanent roommate will move in on 9/21.  We will go up on move in weekend and visit, but luckily won't have any moving to do and can just enjoy our visit.  Here's a photo of Stephen and his temporary roommate Nick.  Nick is one of his water polo teammates.  So far they're having a great time together!  Maybe at move in weekend I'll get his day before 1st day of college photo.

And last but not least was Ali.  She just started 8th grade on Monday.  So we had the most time to hang out and get her "stuff" done.  As it turned out we did a lot of it after school started.  She did get some back to school clothes, but she didn't get her haircut or pedicure until after the first day.  She had two summer projects that she swore she wouldn't be working on at the last minute.  And lo and behold that last weekend, they weren't complete.  So she didn't get to get her other stuff in.  And then I made her wait for the school supplies until after the teachers gave her their lists because it always changes.  And did I mention, I hate school supply shopping.  But I think that's a whole other post.  

Ali and her gang always walk to the corner after school and sit and visit for about 10 minutes before getting in the car to go home.  This year, they'd decided to meet there before school to so that they could visit as they walk.  It worked out great for her 1st day of school photos.

Paige, Ali, McKenna, Lauren & Isiah

All in all it was a successful start to another school year.  Even if it makes me sad how quickly they're growing.  But I do love having teenagers!

More July Fun!

So we had 4th of July festivities here on Thursday.  Sunday we were packed up and left for Nikki's Lake Havasu celebration.  For her 16th birthday, she wanted to invite a group of friends and head out to the river.  Bill and I ended up entertaining 12 kids for five days!  We had a great time and I think they did too.  And the best part is that we really got it all in:

Group photo

I just liked this shot of Stephen

Ali & Grace cliff jumping

Birthday girl, Cassie & Jenny

Nikki playing Charlie's Angels before rope swinging

Stephen on the rope swing

Bill getting some knee boarding in

Dinner at Golden Horseshoe

Got her!

Final day

Yes most of the last day was spent with the kids flying through the air and the raft flipping over.  They wanted to be sure they didn't miss out on anything.  So Bill obliged them and made sure they all got the ride they desired.  It made for some great pictures!  In the five days we were here, I took just over 1000 photos!  I guess we can't say her birthday wasn't well documented.  So we got home late Wednesday. Thursday morning, Nikki went and took her driver's license test:

She got the scary redhead that has failed several of her friends.  But thankfully, she charmed her and drove safely and got licensed!!  That afternoon, we hoped on a plane and headed up to Davis, CA for a soccer tournament. Yep that how our summer has gone.  

We caught a flight out Sunday evening after they didn't move on to the finals since I had another flight right back up there on Wednesday for Stephen's orientation.  He and I were up there until Friday.  It was a ton of information for parents and a chance to socialize for students.  He had a great time, stayed up late, and met lots of  new people.  I didn't see him much, but I enjoyed myself and met a lot of parents.  Friday evening, he flew home while I flew to San Diego for another soccer tournament for Nikki.  Bill had driven down that afternoon to check the team in for me, and picked me up at the airport.  I was especially thankful since my flight was delayed an hour.  And with that being the second flight that was delayed an hour, I was kind of done with flying.  Thankfully I don't have to fly again until August  20th when Stephen will move up to Santa Clara.  Plus that about winds down the part of our summer that had my head spinning.

Senior day for swim

Last week marked the last home meet for swim.  The last home meet/game of the year always is "senior day".  The coaches announce each of the seniors and say where they are going to go for college.  The parents are also announced and generally the boys give the moms a bouquet of flowers.

Of course the main question everyone wants to know is if you are sad.  I am sad to see high school coming to an end and I'm going to miss the crazy schedule, but I am so excited for Stephen.  How can I not be excited for him?  He's worked so hard these past four years and it has payed off exactly as we'd hoped.  He got into the program he wanted and gets to continue to play water polo at the highest level.

That's not to say I don't have momentary times of "freak out".  It usually happens when I see him hanging out with his sisters or we're out having a great meal.  I will definitely miss him like crazy and be so excited for him to come home.  I also am holding out hope that he'll call often.  But my overall emotion is excitement for him.

College Decisions!!

He has made a decision!  That was such a stressful process for us, and I'm sure it was even more stressful for him making the decision.  The original pool of serious consideration started with Redlands, Chapman and Santa Clara.  He really liked the guys at Redlands, and liked a lot about the location of the campus as well as the water polo coach.  The one drawback there was the 3/2 program for engineering.  They paired with only schools out of California, neither of which interested him.

At Santa Clara, he got into the engineering program but was not sure about his status on the water polo team.  Plus it was the only school he didn't get any scholarship money for.  We weren't really up for paying full price and not having him play polo.

Lastly was Chapman.  The location is great, and he had a spot on the team.  They pair with UC Irvine, which would be okay.  So the final decision really came down to a choice between Santa Clara and Chapman.  And he went with....

The coach offered him a spot on the team and that sealed it for him.  He's so excited to get a chance to play there as well as being admitted to the engineering program.  Of course it was the most expensive choice to make, but I think it will be the best place for him.  We're so happy for you Stephen and look forward to seeing your growth and progress through your college years.  Plus we're excited to get to watch you play water polo for a few more years!  We weren't ready to be done yet either :)

Life

Wow I just realized how long it's been since I've posted anything here.  It's one of those things that I don't really have time to do, but I know I should.  Just looking back at my past posts makes me so happy.  Even the photo at the top of the blog, wow!  I can't believe how much the kids have changed since then.  That was three years ago when we went on our first college tours.  Now Stephen has finished all of his applications and has already gotten acceptances from three!

Let me just take a moment here to gush about him.  I am so proud of the young man he has become.  He has worked so hard the past four years.  He went into high school a hockey player and has worked hard to become a great water polo player.  He now has the ability to decide if he wants to continue to play in college.  It took playing club year round, while also swimming tons of hours during swim season but he did it.  That's all we've always wanted for them, is to have options.  Of course we hope he'll continue to play throughout college, but that's his choice.  But if he hadn't put in the work all of those years, he wouldn't have that choice to make.

I don't see any chance where he wouldn't continue to play since he's seen the payoff physically and mentally, but who knows.

I really can't believe how quickly time is going by.  I know as soon as Stephen makes his college decision, it will be time to turn around and start working on it with Nikki.  And unfortunately her interests are completely different from his.  So our tours and decisions will really start from scratch.  The good news is that the process will be completely hers.  And hopefully with any luck, she will have lots of options that she will have afforded herself from her hard work as well.  I am looking forward to traveling that road with her.  But of course it makes me sad now that I know how quickly it's going to go.

Sports or Academics

We've always been a crazy sports family.   From travel ice hockey to club soccer to water polo and swim, we've had lots of intense weekends and some great family times.  Now that our oldest is a Sophomore in high school, we're seeing the commitment necessary to playing high school sports.  He plays water polo and swims and is in the water 6-7 hours a day.  He loves it and I love what it gives him. He's part of a team and has an incredible work ethic.  So now the problem comes in.  We've seen Seniors that are applying to colleges that have maintained incredible grades while committing to their sport.  And they aren't getting in to the colleges of their choice.  The boys that are getting in are the ones that were strictly academic.  These are boys that have done nothing but study and get good grades.  So what to do?  Personally I don't think that would be good for any of my children.  I think the sports keep them focused, in shape and well rounded.  I think socially the sport has helped them grow as people.  We've been told over and over by the counselors to focus on academics rather than sports because much more merit scholarships are awarded than sports scholarships.  But the coaches want to win.  They push these kids to the limits, leaving very little time to study let alone do homework.  If they skip a practice, they risk being benched.  It's a really tough balancing act that as a parent I never know if I'm doing the best thing.  But I  have to think I'm doing what is best for my child.  He may not get into the top college, but he'll have had a high school experience that was balanced and full of great memories.  And in the end, he'll end up in a college that will be right for him.  And as their parents, we'll have had many full, exciting weekends.

USF-University of San Francisco

I decided to write a little bit more detail about some of the colleges we visited, in part so I'll remember!  USF is a small, private, Catholic university.  It's a bit easier to get into than some of the other schools we visited.  The required GPA was about 3.5, weighted.  If you have a 3.8 GPA, plus score 30 on the ACT that automatically got you entrance as well as $19k yearly.  It was similar to Stanford in the flexibility of required classes.  They have general ed like most schools except there is a lot of room to play with those classes.  The girl leading the talk said she isn't good at math so instead of taking a math class she took an iphone app class and that counted as math credit.  They also really push you to do some time overseas.  One of their business majors you spend three trimesters abroad and graduate with a masters in 5 years.  It sounded like it could be a really great school.  The downside is that they don't have water polo, and don't have a lot of majors.  Plus even with the $19k discount in tuition, it's still quite high.  So that's my take on USF.  I think it ended up middle of the list after first look.

Final days of our road trip

Well we ended up not making it to UC Davis.  It was too long of a drive to see another school that I'm pretty sure he wouldn't like.  So we spent the time in San Francisco.  Wednesday night when we arrived, we only had time for dinner.  So we walked to The Cheesecake Factory in Macy's.  That Macy's was amazing!  It was 7 stories high!  So we had a 20 minute wait for dinner and ended up buying Nikki a pair of jeans and Ali a pretty hair clip.  We were really looking forward to spending the next day in a shopping bliss when the store employee told us they'd be closed for Thanksgiving.  Huh?? Why didn't we consider that as a possibility?  Here we'd been so excited to shop all day.  We had a nice time anyway.  We had breakfast on the 36th floor of our hotel, then walked to the movie theatre.  The girls and I watched one movie (The Social Network) and the boys watched another (Unstoppable).  Then we all met up and the kids went ice skating.  We headed back to the hotel for a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner.
Friday, the girls wanted to shop.  But I had to break it to them that I DON'T do black Friday.  I can't stand crowds and I never find anything I like on sale anyway.  So we got up, checked out and went to Gott's.  It's the former Taylor's Refresher that Bill and I ate at several times while in Napa.  We had burgers, fries and oreo shakes at 11:30 in the morning.  It was the perfect way to end our fabulous trip!  We had a great time and got some good college info.  We'll still have to find a few more schools that aren't such a reach to get into, but it's definitely a start.

3rd day of colleges

So the next stop was UC Berkeley.  We drove through a seedy downtown and parked in that downtown area.  We walked up to the campus and didn't know where to begin.  Stephen was grouchy because he didn't like the town already.  Unfortunately the campus was closed due to the holiday so we weren't able to set up any tours.  A lady there pointed us in the direction of the pool so we headed that way.  Stephen said he didn't even care if we saw that because he had no interest in that school.  Being that it's a little liberal for me, and so tough to get into we said, "okay, let's go".  We didn't have much time until our appointment at University of San Francisco so off we went.
All I knew about USF was that it was another small, Catholic school that Jen had recommended as well.  Here we had an informational meeting as well as a tour.  At first Stephen said he wouldn't even consider it because he didn't feel he could deal with the big city.  After the tour he had said it seemed like a good school.  The down side is that they had an awesome pool, but no water polo or swim team.  That was a definite downer.  They did have D1 soccer, which Nikki liked.
At the end of that day, we all talked about the schools.  They all liked all of them except for Cal Poly SLO.  They all said it just wasn't their kind of school, whatever that means!  I think at this point it goes like this:
UCSB
Stanford
Santa Clara
USF
We may try to squeeze in UC Davis.  We'll see how it goes.

2nd stop on our college road trip!

So our 2nd stop was at Santa Clara University.  This is a small, Catholic school that was recommended to me by our college planner.  I knew only the basics about it, as well as that it had a D1 water polo team, which was obviously a plus.  We went on a tour in the rain and then sat for a short, informational talk.  It sounds like a tough school to get into.  Grades and test scores need to be high.  Being a water polo player will help.  We all really liked the school, even if it does seem a bit small.  The girls really liked it, and though I think Stephen would do well there, I think it might be a better fit for the girls.
Next stop was Stanford.  We had an informational meeting only scheduled.  The meeting was very good, and they mentioned a tour afterward.  We begged and they agreed to let us join the tour even though it was full.  Of course the tour sealed the deal.  It makes it so much more personal to have someone explaining the buildings and letting you inside.  The church was beautiful as was the campus.  The story behind it was very cool too.  The original Stanford family had a son that died at the age of 16.  They wanted something to carry on his memory and decided on a university.  One of the 5 things that they agreed upon was that they would never sell any of the land.  It is an amazing place.  I don't know how high grades need to be to get into Stanford, but I know it would be much higher than where Stephen is now.  It's definitely something to work towards.
At dinner that evening we talked about the favorites so far.  They all liked UCSB the best, with Stanford and Santa Clara right behind.  Next stop will be Cal and USF...

College Tour Road Trip

We hit the road!  Stephen doesn't get much time off throughout the year; a week at Thanksgiving, two weeks at Christmas and three weeks in the summer.  Since summer is usually reserved for a family vacation we figured we won't have much time left to visit colleges.  We decided to take a few days and see a few colleges in Northern California.  Our first stop was UCSB.  I had a feeling it was going to be like when you are shopping for an important occasion.  You try on a million dresses and end up buying the first one you saw.  UCSB is beautiful!  It was everything Stephen and Nikki both wanted in a school.  They were both completely sold.  We visited the rec center, the pools, I.V (the party housing) and the visitor center.  We then decided to scrap the visit to UCSC because the write up in my book wasn't very favorable.  We instead hit Cal Poly SLO.  The kids all thought it wasn't nearly the school that UCSB was and had no interest in hanging out too long.  We had lunch near the campus and they were all okay with that, but both Stephen and Nikki said it wasn't a school that would be high on their list.  I think the beauty of UCSB completely overpowered anything else they would have seen that same day.  Next stop...Santa Clara University and Stanford.