2010 - the year (so far) in review
August
August was pretty busy. (Well, perhaps it's simply the month about which I remember the most, since it's the one that just ended.)
As one last hurrah before the semester began, we went to San Diego. Recall that a few months before, we told we were going to San Diego but in actuality surprised him with a trip to ? I suppose we shouldn't have been surprised when he thought this trip was to , too. :)
Anyway, we bought annual passes and spent a few days at Legoland. Legoland, as a theme park, can easily be visited by a family of kids in one day and by child-free adults in half that...but we have plenty of fond memories of trips to Legoland from when was much younger, and the park's laid-back vibe really lends itself to a slower pace.
We flew in to San Diego instead of driving, and in retrospect it was a very good thing that we did. We flew out on Sunday and home on Wednesday...and the park was far busier on Monday and Tuesday than it was on the other two days. Had we driven all day Sunday, spent Monday and Tuesday fighting the crowds, and driven all day Wednesday, the trip wouldn't have been nearly as much fun.
New attractions at the park include an aquarium (which was good for a half-day in air-conditioned darkness) and a water park (which was good for a half-day in sweltering brightness). The water park's lazy river featured giant foam Lego bricks floating in the water, and the inner tubes you floated on had studded platforms you could build on, so you could just pick bricks out of the water as they floated by and add them to your inner tube. By the time was done, his inner tube had a full canopy of bricks, keeping him shaded as he bobbed about.
The evenings were spent at a "Build And Test" interactive area, where kids were building race cars and racing them on a sloped track (think "Pinewood Derby", if you're familiar with cub/boy scouting). It was interesting watching 's design evolve.
After that, had some advisement appointments and transfer orientation at State University. Given the classes and credit hours that transferred from the community college, he's mostly on track to graduate in May 2012. (The "critical path" is a sequence of classes where he's one semester behind, but if he wants to catch up, he may be able to take two of them concurrently, or take one next summer.)
And we were all set for the first day of class to be on Monday 8/23...so imagine my surprise when I was listening to the radio the morning of Thursday 8/19 and heard "Today's the first day of school for SU students..." Oops! (Thankfully, I heard that early enough for us to recover and get him to campus on time.)
August was pretty busy. (Well, perhaps it's simply the month about which I remember the most, since it's the one that just ended.)
As one last hurrah before the semester began, we went to San Diego. Recall that a few months before, we told we were going to San Diego but in actuality surprised him with a trip to ? I suppose we shouldn't have been surprised when he thought this trip was to , too. :)
Anyway, we bought annual passes and spent a few days at Legoland. Legoland, as a theme park, can easily be visited by a family of kids in one day and by child-free adults in half that...but we have plenty of fond memories of trips to Legoland from when was much younger, and the park's laid-back vibe really lends itself to a slower pace.
We flew in to San Diego instead of driving, and in retrospect it was a very good thing that we did. We flew out on Sunday and home on Wednesday...and the park was far busier on Monday and Tuesday than it was on the other two days. Had we driven all day Sunday, spent Monday and Tuesday fighting the crowds, and driven all day Wednesday, the trip wouldn't have been nearly as much fun.
New attractions at the park include an aquarium (which was good for a half-day in air-conditioned darkness) and a water park (which was good for a half-day in sweltering brightness). The water park's lazy river featured giant foam Lego bricks floating in the water, and the inner tubes you floated on had studded platforms you could build on, so you could just pick bricks out of the water as they floated by and add them to your inner tube. By the time was done, his inner tube had a full canopy of bricks, keeping him shaded as he bobbed about.
The evenings were spent at a "Build And Test" interactive area, where kids were building race cars and racing them on a sloped track (think "Pinewood Derby", if you're familiar with cub/boy scouting). It was interesting watching 's design evolve.
After that, had some advisement appointments and transfer orientation at State University. Given the classes and credit hours that transferred from the community college, he's mostly on track to graduate in May 2012. (The "critical path" is a sequence of classes where he's one semester behind, but if he wants to catch up, he may be able to take two of them concurrently, or take one next summer.)
And we were all set for the first day of class to be on Monday 8/23...so imagine my surprise when I was listening to the radio the morning of Thursday 8/19 and heard "Today's the first day of school for SU students..." Oops! (Thankfully, I heard that early enough for us to recover and get him to campus on time.)