Starts

This is the time of year that everything starts, it seems.  I realize now that our lives this summer have been a calm before the storm of real life sets in - I was just wishing we were living real life before - it was peacefully dull.  Anyway, on Monday evening, Mark, Jake, and Sam headed out to Philadelphia - a 880 mile one way trip from our house, in case you're curious.  I'd like to say I handled this really well, dry eyed with some touching words of wisdom.  Of course, that would be a blatant lie, but to my credit, Joe said he thought I'd cry more - which in retrospect may be less to my credit and more a testament to his expectations of my blubbering hysteria, which just wasn't as bad as he expected.  I stood at the door with tears rolling down my face, but Jake was so ready to be off!  I'm so glad he's so excited!

But they couldn't leave before they had a last binge on "Jake's Mom's Cookies" as they came to be known in India.  Or perhaps "Sam's Mom's Cookies," or Ahnalies' Mom's Cookies," or "Joe's..." you get the picture.  It was shameless bribery to remind him to come home again, at least for the cookies!

They arrived at Villanova's campus Tuesday afternoon, checked into Jake's room and unloaded the car, and then to the hotel.

Wednesday they got his room organized, met his roommate, went shopping for some essentials (they went to Ikea without me!) and Jake stayed in his room that night.  Thursday, Jake was deeply involved in Freshman orientation so they finished getting things settled before Mark and Sam headed for home.  They drove straight here, arriving at 2 AM Friday morning. 

This is Jake's dorm - his room is the right half of the dormer on the 3rd floor. 

The rooms aren't quite as nice as our rooms at Calvin were, that's for sure!

This is Jake's little corner of the world - Mark pointed out that he had even made his bed!

His roommate is of Greek decent - he was born and raised in Long Island, NY, but his parents came to the US as adults.  They own a Greek diner - which led to countless references to "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," a movie we recently watched again and died laughing, again.  His parents are from Sparta originally, which also led to some shameless "300" references, including the idea that they should hang a sign on the door that says, "This is Sparta!"  All reports so far are that he's a nice kid, quiet, similar to Jake only more reserved, also studying Engineering, just Chemical instead of Mechanical. We'll continue to pray for a smooth transition and a good relationship for them.

On the home front, Thursday marked the beginning of school for Ahnalies (8th grade) and Joe (4th grade).  Neither of them slept well Wednesday night, and neither did I, but all went well the first day.  None of the kids really enjoy being the center of attention in a crowd, so the experience of standing up, raising your hand, or whatever, if you're new isn't fun for them.  They each have 1 other new child in their class.  Ahnalies was unimpressed with the history test given the first day of class.  The teacher looked at the other new person, a Korean boy, and said, "It's OK if you don't know this stuff.  You aren't even a citizen of this country."  Ahnalies said to me, "What about me?  I've barely lived here and got 1/2 the questions wrong!"  I assured her it was just a benchmark for the teacher, and I was sure he knew enough about her background that he wouldn't be shocked with her lack of knowledge - she wasn't convinced.

Sam will start school next Wednesday, but he was able to go to soccer practice today and even though he missed tryouts (he couldn't go to practice until he was registered, which he was able to do yesterday) he made the team.  Joe is also playing soccer this fall, so it will be filled with cold evening shivering on the sidelines!  Good thing I like the sport.