Author Archives: Tessa

A few more colleges

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I was wrong in my April post. That wasn’t our last college tour. We decided to do two more this month. Last week we visited Hofstra University and SUNY Stony Brook. Both have marine ecology programs that she’s interested in, plus significant art departments. Both are bigger than the other schools we’ve looked at. She was initially very excited for Stony Brook and Hofstra was just an extra while we were there. After touring both, her opinion has swapped!

We started with a morning tour at Hofstra. They had a whole recruiting event going on, so there were lots of people (students, staff, high schoolers, and families), plus balloons everywhere, snackies, and live music. It was a really fun event! The campus is located in a pretty urban area, but the campus itself is a pretty cozy place. Hofstra is a registered Arboretum, so the plant life was diverse and really interesting. Eve loved it. Their science department had pretty awesome fish tanks, and they offer scuba diving as PE credits!

There are these metal statues in interesting places all over campus, plus moss on building walls, and a labyrinth!
King Gerald waving to his buddies.
Hofstra’s mascots are lions, Willie and Kate. Students are called The Pride.
We like Willie and Kate.

After we were done at Hofstra we decided to swing by Northport to revisit our old stomping grounds. A lot has changed, but plenty has stayed the same. We went out on the dock, ate at the Shipwreck Diner, explored all the cute stores, then went to look at the water some more. Petting dogs along the way. There were so many dogs out!! I don’t know if that’s a normal day in Northport, or if it was “bring your dog into town day,” or something. LOL.

The next day we hit up another diner for breakfast. Long Island is like diner-land. They were everywhere. I always thought it was a Grandma thing, but maybe she was just a product of her location! :)

Then we headed to SUNY Stony Brook. The campus had some nice parts, but overall it was HUGE and had large swaths of concrete and paving (roads, wide walkways, random paved areas, etc.) I might have been a little cranky because we were late and the directions didn’t work properly in the car (routing us to the wrong place on campus) and the tour guides were terrible! All of us were tired by the end. I had scheduled a follow-up tour with the art department and with the science department. We did the art department tour, but Eve wasn’t super impressed. We then had two hours to wait before the science tour, but we were too tired and cranky to wait, so we bailed on that appointment.

Eve actually applied at Stony Brook and at Plattsburg at the end of October when SUNY had a free application week. She applied to Hofstra in the car on the way home from Long Island! Now we wait for the acceptance letters to roll in so we can compare offers.

Throat procedure – round 3 (?)

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This is a little old, and also boring, but I want to document anyway. After several years (4ish, I believe) and several steroid injections (three, maybe?) I went back in for another subglottic stenosis procedure on November 5th. Election day! It was a good day to be sedated.

I went back to my DHMC doctor, instead of going to Boston again. My local guy is doing the injection procedure now, so I was ready to switch back.

The process went well and I’m feeling better after it. He also did a steroid injection at the same time. Hopefully it lasts awhile!

Can you tell the needle spots from the freckles? :)

Voting!

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This year Lex and River are both going to be at college for election day, so we all voted by mail together. (This was a few weeks ago, I just forgot to post it then.) It was nice to be able discuss the ballot together, talk about the candidates, and let the boys hear my thought process. Alan was there too, so they got some of his insight as well. Of course we all made our own decisions and completed our own ballots.

My first time voting was at the campus center at Syracuse University. I went into the booth and pulled a big lever to vote for Bill Clinton. That was probably a more memorable experience that Lex and River got, but I think this election is more critical! I’m glad they both got the chance to vote. It’s their first presidential election, but, let’s hope, not their last!

Happy Halloween!

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Everly was so excited to be back in the US for Halloween. She missed it greatly last year. Halloween and fall in general. Leaves, apples, pumpkins, etc. It’s just not the same in Sweden, so this year she wanted to go all out! She carved her own pumpkins, put together a great costume for her and the dog, and even rallied a group of friends to go trick-or-treating. Now she’s sitting on the floor with her friends playing dice and gambling with candy. (after secretly texting me asking me to send her friends home soon because she’s exhausted.)

Dipper and Gompy
The namesake “birthmark”
Trick-or-treating

My costume was part of a bigger group costume at work, based on the book Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak. My boss was Max and the rest of us were Wild Things. It was actually a pretty fun group costume.

Earlier in the day we picked up our CSA share
This morning at work.
Max and the Wild Things

UPDATE: This was posted on Facebook this evening. Rumor has it she was referring to E’s group. “If you have teenagers out trick or treating on Colonial Drive in Wilder right now, I have something to say to you, so listen up. Your kids are adorable and they have lovely manners. Thank you for raising such nice humans.”

Quick trip to WPI

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We met Rosy at WPI this weekend to take in a pep band concert (with a little football on the side)! It was a great fall day for a day trip. The sun was shining, the leaves were falling, and the WPI Engineers won! We took Lex out to dinner afterwards (Olive Garden, of course), then had to say goodbye again. :( Good thing we’ll see him again in a few weeks for Thanksgiving!

This is a playlist, so just click play and let it run through all six videos.

Senior Pictures!

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Hard to believe, but Miss Eve, now Everly, is graduating this year. We had her senior pictures taken last weekend. We went to a waterfall we found over the summer. She wanted the woodland fairy vibe and she wanted to splash in the water, so it seemed like the best place. Her friend Simon joined us to get his pictures done as well. We had fun and I’m excited to get the professional pictures back! In the meantime, here are a few that Alan and I took. :)

Back to School

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Welcome to Back to School season! This year we had a pretty staggered start to the school year. E started yesterday, R started last week, and L started a few days before that. I did not start at all, however I did celebrate my one year anniversary at the Howe Library yesterday.

  • 1st-ish week of sophomore year at WPI
  • 1st day of classes at RIT
  • First day of senior year
  • The final picture frame photo. :(
  • One year (and one day) at the library!

I’ve been missing the drama of the start of school a little bit. Not the stress that goes along with the drama, but a school is such a big, strong community and over the years you build your place within it. When you leave, the community goes on. Obviously. This year there is drama at the district level and a mold contamination in my (old) building that’s required multiple classrooms to move, multiple grades to start a week later, and teachers are scrambling. I hear there’s a class room stationed in the library. I miss the drama, but also happy I’m not in it. Weird how two things can be true at once.

Anyway, the kids are all back at school and doing well. <3

RIT Bound!

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We spent last weekend in New York, kayaking, partying, and dropping another kid off at college!

I rented a minivan for this college trip. We had a fun time with the space, cup holders, and complete lack of get-up-and-go! It went zero to sixty in like five minutes! LOL.

We stopped at the usual lunch spot where King Gerald enjoyed a fruit cup. Then on to Rosy’s house for the evening. She invited us to join her on a swim/kayak around the lake with her master swim class. They swam, we kayaked. It was supposed to be moonlight swim by the light of the almost full moon, but the clouds didn’t cooperate. We had a great outing even without the full moon.

The next morning River and I headed to Rochester Institute of Technology! The forecast called for rain and storms, but they held off for most of the day so we were able to move him in under the hot sun instead of an umbrella.

Apparently I didn’t take many pictures. LOL. He had some roommate switching to do so we couldn’t get him all settled in and unpacked, but I thoroughly enjoyed the view from his window! He can see the athletic fields and much of campus. He could watch the football and baseball games from his bedroom! We went to the resource fair and grabbed a few freebies, went to the bookstore for a new car magnet, and then the rain started. By then we were ready for dinner, so we called (j/k – texted) the Kirkwoods, our Rochester buddies, and went out to dinner with them. Somehow I didn’t even get a picture of that?! We’ll be have to sure to do it again soon. I drove home that night with a happy heart and, after the storm parked, a beautiful full moon guiding the way.

The next day we had a little family party to celebrate Rosy’s birthday. Apparently I didn’t take pictures there either. Slacking on my photography responsibilities here! I enjoyed the visit though, and that’s what really matters. We drove home the next day.

All girls! Cat, kid, fish, mom. (Huxley was still at the kennel.)

This weekend we had a little video call so I could see the boys again. :) It sounds like everyone is settling in and doing well.

I wasn’t sleeping, just looking down at my phone to take the picture. 🙄

Back to WPI

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We brought Lex back to WPI today. The summer went by waaayyy too fast! He went back a week early again this year for band camp. This year he’s living in a campus apartment with six other guys. He’s in a friend group that decided to get two adjoining (or at least near by) campus apartments. He’s sharing a room with the same roommate he had last year. They both got along well. They are also both in band so they will be the only two in the apartment this week.

The apartment is nice, but the bedrooms are TINY. I was reminiscing about my freshman dorm and it was probably twice the size of his room!

  • His dorm last year was that building in the background. His room was the window in the peak. :)
  • In this picture you can see his current window (and him in it) and last year’s window. :)
  • The path from the car to his room felt like a Donkey King game. Glad no one was throwing barrels at us!
  • The living room. (we were all pretty hot and sweaty by this point!)
  • The other side of the living room. That TV looked a lot bigger in last year’s room.
  • The kitchen / dining room.
  • His bedroom.
  • They have bunk beds! They aren’t allowed to unloft them, which is fine because there’s no available floor space anyway. I think this will be hard for Lex this year.
  • Looking out the front door of their apartment.
  • Campus is just across the street.

Once again he had drumline auditions so we couldn’t spend the day with him. We did have time to get him moved in and somewhat unpacked before he had to go. Plus a few photos, of course!

I texted him tonight and he said the audition went well. He’ll be playing Bass 2 in pep band this year. He again was hoping for snare, but seems happy with bass. I’m looking forward to seeing him perform, and just seeing him again! :)