Happy Day!

Yeah--Today was the first day of school!

I love my kids dearly but I always feel a sense of relief when the first day of school rolls around. Both boys were up bright and early and surprisingly raring to go. I expected Adam to be a bit nervous, he usually is about new situations and today was his first day of high school. Most of his friends were gone or in summer school so he hasn't seen much of many of them over the summer so I suppose any nervousness he might have been feeling was overridden by the anticipation of hanging out with his buddies.

Today was also the first day of classes for Stephanie. She loves her advisor and was excited to get all four classes she was hoping for this semester. I couldn't help but laugh when she was shocked at needing to buy 13 books and how much that added up to even though she got all used. She says the Art History book weighs more than she does!

She's taking French 201, Art History and the American Experience which is a literature course required for her major. She's getting the required writing seminar out of the way.

Both boys are taking Spanish, English, Geometry, Biology, and PE. Andrew, however, is a year ahead of Adam in Spanish. History is also required and Andrew's got World History while Adam's requirement is Geography and World Cultures which is a new class this year.

One Down, Two to Go

I expected to feel a sense of loss after we said good-bye to Stephanie last night but instead I felt proud. Proud that she was so happy and excited by the prospect of everything she will learn and experience during the next four years. The reality that she's moved on to this next phase in her life will probably hit me in a few days.

We drove over to Occidental in two cars. Steph and I in her car and Sam and the boys in the other, both cars filled with the stuff for her dorm room. After she checked into her dorm and was issued her key we went to find room 105. Newcomb Hall has nice sized double rooms and houses 150 students. The boys are on one side and the girls on the other. There are two rec rooms, a kitchen, and a computer lab for common use. The bathrooms are communal, one for men, one for women on each floor.

Her roomate Talia hadn't arrived yet so we unloaded and just set everything in the room. Steph didn't want to claim a side until she knew if Talia had a preference. I was afraid Steph was taking too much and we'd have to bring some of it home again but there was plenty of storage space.

Talia and her family arrived shortly afterward and we all got busy helping them unpack as much as possible before we all had to head off for the luncheon and the various orientation events. The students went to their events and the parents to ours. That occupied the entire afternoon.

Talia is from northern California and seems very nice and she and Steph had quite a bit in common. Her parents seemed to find some reassurance in knowing that we were only an hour and a half away if they needed anything.

Since we knew Steph was anxious to throw herself into the events planned for the evening (a hall BBQ followed by a college wide carnival) and didn't want her to feel obligated to stay with us
we said our good-byes about 5pm after the last orientation session.

We had a short note from her this morning saying she was having a blast. Today she was to take her placement tests and go to more orientation sessions. Tomorrow she'll meet with her advisor and pick her classes and the after convocation Wednesday classes begin.

We're sure going to miss her, yes even the boys, and even though I don't expect she'll be home as much as I would probably like, she knows we are here for her. I may not like it, but it's time to let go, she's got her own life to shape now.

Moving Day

Tomorrow morning we leave bright and early for Occidental College to help Stephanie move into Newcomb Hall, her dorm. Everythings packed, the car is loaded and I'm exhausted. More on the big day to come!

School Registration

Registration began today at the high school. Today was Seniors, tomorrow Juniors, Wednesday the Sophomores (Andrew) and Thursday the incoming Freshman (Adam).

For some stupid reason when I was asked to help with registration I found myself saying yes. So for four hours this morning (and for the remainder of the process) I sat at my station and collected various forms from students or parents. Actually I ended up covering three of the stations because there weren't enough volunteers to cover it all.

It was nice however to see several folks I haven't seen in a while. Wednesday and Thursday the boys will come help too.

Recently Read...

THE HISTORIAN by Elizabeth Kostova.

If you enjoy history you'll find THE HISTORIAN a really good read.

A Day I Dread

Every summer I dread the day I take the kids to get their school supplies and I cringe as the cart gets fuller and fuller knowing that it's all going to add up to more than I expected. It usually means having to go to two or three places to get everything but I lucked out and two stops sufficed this time out and the grand total wasn't quite as bad as I thought it would be.

Good thing too with gas here running $2.89 and that's at the cheaper stations some are over $3. It used to run me about $30 to fill my tank twice a week but it's about $45 at the moment and will only get worse once school starts and I'm driving even more than I am now.

This year I also wanted to make sure that Steph and all the misc. stuff she'll need but you always take for granted because you have one. Things like a pencil sharpener, stapler and scissors.

Sam bought her a notebook computer and a small printer to take with her and after we got home I realized we should have got her a couple of extra printer cartridges so we'll get those next week.

Most of Stephanie's friends were leaving for school this week so we haven't seen much of her between skating, work and seeing them all off. She, David, Michelle and Shayda are the only ones left in town and David leaves Sunday. It's going to seem strange not to have them coming around and raiding the fridge. But tonight everyone was home for dinner for a change.

Vern

The kids have always loved animals so we maintain a membership at the LA Zoo. As zoo's go LA's is not bad but it has often bothered me that some of the enclosures were in obvious need of an upgrade. Last year the zoo began major renovations and Saturday night we attended an event to mark the opening of the new sea lion exhibit.

We'd already seen the new exhibit but the member events are always a great opportunity to go to the Zoo when it's closed to the public in the evening and the animals are usually more active than during the heat of the day. What we really went to see was how Vern was progressing.

Vern is a baby Sifaka, a kind of Lemur, and he was born at the zoo this past spring. Adam and I go the most often and we fell in love with this little fella the first time we saw him and I have been going as often as we can to see how he is growing.

We've watched him grow from a tiny little thing, virtually all arms, legs and tail into quite a handsome young guy. His Mom is very loving and attentive and the first few times we saw him he was clinging firmly to her back. On our last visit he'd doubled in size and was starting to imitate the other Sifaka's leaping from tree to tree but not straying too far from Mom.

On this most recent visit he'd doubled his size again and we watched him wear out his family with about 40 minutes of hard playing. Vern's got quite a personality and it's probably my imagination but I could swear he enjoys people watching his antics.

Busy, Busy

It's been a very productive week workwise for me. I had an article and two reviews due this week and got them all in ahead of schedule--go me! Two more reviews to go and I'm finally caught up with the backlog. Both are SCE eBooks so those will be quick reads.

Two more tapes to go and all the stuff from Shore Leave will be transcribed. I filled seven tapes while I was there. Those articles are due on varying dates over the next three months so there hasn't been any big rush to get them done but I'd still like to get them out of the way so it's over and done with. Once the transcribings done, the writing is the easy part.

Next week I've got an author interview to do for a piece due on the 25th and the SciFi Pulse site just asked me to do an interview for something for them as well. I've just agreed to do a book column for them six times a year starting next month and also to provide a minimum of four other articles per year. Ian's a really nice guy and I enjoy working with him.

Since I was such a good little girl this week I can enjoy a guilt free weekend. We're heading up to Valencia tomorrow to spend the day with some old friends. Saturday morning Andrew's doing his last volunteer day for the summer at the Hollywood Entertainment Museum and in the evening we'll be going to an LA Zoo members event so we'll have a chance to see how much all the babies we've been watching have grown since we were last there in June.

Sunday is the annual USS Angeles pool party at Dave Masons place in Oxnard, a summer highlight we always look forward to. I wonder how many people we can cram in the hot tub this year?

Karate Kids

The boys recently decided they wanted to attend an extra class each week at their Martial Arts school and Andrew's also been going in on his own to work out in the weight room another 2 or 3 times a week. That means they are there five days a week at the moment; both black belt classes (they are still preparing for their second degree test), sparring and now grappling. Thankfully the weapons class is on hiatis for the summer.

Adam is definately the star of the Dojo. He's always had incredible technique but now that he's had yet another growth spurt he's got the power to go along with the technique and it really struck me how good he's become when I watched him working with Mr. Cox the other day. Derrick Cox is a five-time world champion and one of three instructors they work with at the Dojo.

The entire class was doing kicking drills, partnering up to hold the paddles for each other. Mr. Cox was holding the paddles for Adam. I was reading when I realized it had become unusually quiet so I looked up from my book to see why. The entire class had come to a halt and everyone had backed off to the edge of the mat to watch as Adam executed one perfect kick after another in every combination Mr. Cox would shout out. They were doing 3 kick combinations, each containing at least one spin or jump kick and as I watched I suddenly realized what had drawn everyone's attention--Adam was backing up Cox up with each kick.

As I sat there watching him I couldn't help but think back to when he started Tae Kwon Do as a very small for his age 5 year old. When the kids were really small the only activity Adam ever expressed a lot of interest in was Martial Arts. Just after we moved here I gave in and enrolled him at a local Tae Kwon Do school hoping he'd make some friends before he started school. Andrew though it all looked cool and started soon after that.

Eight years later they've each got a black belt in both Tae Kwon Do and Karate. Andrew doesn't have the same passion for it that Adam does but both boys still enjoy it as much as when they first began and they've each gotten a lot out of the sport.

Beating the Heat

To say it's hot here would be a bit of an understatement but that is par for the course in our little corner of Southern California known as the San Fernando Valley. The last couple of days have topped 100 and we won't have many days over the next 7 or 8 weeks that come in under that.

Yesterday the boys had Karate in the late afternoon so it wasn't a good day to take off for the beach so we decided to take in a movie and went to the local AMC to see "The Island". Imagine our surprise when the movie started and it wasn't the "The Island" but rather "The Great Raid", a movie that's not even out yet.

After a few minutes I observed people leaving to go inform someone the wrong film was showing and eventually they turned off "The Great Raid", made an announcement and then started "The Island". Everyone in the theater was given free passes for the inconvenience which I appreciated. I enjoyed "The Island", particulary the cinematography. It wasn't outstanding but it was an enjoyable way to pass a hot summer afternoon.

On the other hand after seeing the first 15 minutes or so of "The Great Raid" I definately won't bother to see that, not even as a DVD rental.

We're gonna pack the car up shortly and head down to the beach today to meet up with some friends--Yeah!

Making a Dent

The kids and I went out shopping yesterday and we managed to make quite a dent in the list of things Stephanie needs for her dorm room. With stops at Target and Bed, Bath and Beyond we got most of what she needs. Everything is boxed or bagged and awaiting moving day August 27th.

Personally I really dislike shopping but Stephanie's enthusiasm was contagious. Even the boys seemed to enjoy helping her pick out what she needed.

Overall it's been a quiet week so far. I finished an article Tuesday and need to get a review written today and one more over the weekend but it's a nice feeling to be on top of everything and not scrambling to get caught up with work.