birthday #14 celebration

big sister likes to keep it simple with her birthday parties.  although we offered her lots of ideas, ranging from going to a waterpark, to spending the night at a hotel, to going bowling, skating or to the movies – she chose a movie, dinner out, then a sleepover.  she invited 3 friends, which was just the perfect size.  they arrived around 3pm saturday, and daddy took then to the mall to see the darkest minds, and i heard they all pretty much bawled thru several parts of the movie.

after the movie, the girls came back to the house to hang for a bit, then we headed to dinner at fuzzy’s tacos.  we let the girls sit at their own table, because that is what cool parents do….

  once back at the house, we opened gifts and then had cake & ice cream.

earlier in the day, little sister helped me attempt a mirror-glaze cake.  it turned out better in the end than expected while we were doing it.  the gelatin in the glaze made for an odd texture on the frosting, so we just peeled it off like we would remove fondant before eating.  like fondant, i guess a mirror-glaze is more for looks than for awesome flavor.

after about an hour of playing hogwarts battle, the girls retreated upstairs to the game room to watch tv and semi-wind down for bed.  or not.  daddy & i went to bed, and slept as well as we could knowing there were 4 teenagers upstairs hanging out.

in the morning, we surprised big sister with birthday donuts.  i think she was pretty pleased with them, but her reaction may have been muted by her lack of sleep.  the friends left between 10-11am, so we had the rest of the day to clean up and rest/recover from all the fun.

last game

little sister's summer volleyball team played tonight and won.  and i made special cupcake treats for all to enjoy after the game.  this was the last game of the season.

birthday #14

happy birthday to our 14 year old!  birthdays seem to come quicker each year, and this one is no exception.  you had to go to summer band camp today, so no special privileges or vacationing  today.  (welcome to the real world…)

 

there was an impromptu gathering of friends after camp at our house.  lilly & aary came over and you were content just hanging out on the trampoline.  i whipped together a quick italian dinner for us (spaghetti, meatballs, alfredo pasta & garlic bread), then we sang to you and enjoyed cake & ice cream.

after your friends left, we opened family gifts.  you were happy to get lots of money, art markers, and a new snugly aggie blanket.  we wish you an awesome 14^th year, and hope we have taught you to make good choices, to be a friend, and to always know we are here for you and love you no matter what.

happy birthday, big sister!!

band camp

today was big sister’s first day at band camp – 8am to 4pm.  this will be her life for the next 2 weeks, and she is very excited.  they will spend 8-11:30am outside on the marching pad, then break for lunch, and from 1-4pm they will be inside learning their show music.  they have lots to learn before their first performance at the august 31^st football game!!

(she's on the 44 yard line, right side, 3 from the back in a blue/purple shirt <in front of the girl in hot pink>)

camp pick-up

daddy & i both took the day off of work so we could drive back to college station to pick up big sister.  we got there in time to attend the 3:30pm awards ceremony at the george bush library.  the director of the camp told all of us parents how busy he kept our kids this week, which made me feel a lot better about having not heard from julianne much all week.  i guess i should be happy to have raised such an independent, self-sufficient daughter.

big sister’s animation class was one of 5 offerings during this yap session. (the others were law school, mechanical engineering, nanotechnology, and veterinary medicine).  it was interesting to get a brief overview of what all the classes were about.  we also learned that next summer’s animation class will take the students to japan for an anime version of the class, so we had better start saving now, because big sister definitely wants to go!!

we got to see a video of the animations that big sister’s class had worked on all week.  they roughly had only 20 hours in total to learn and create using the maya animation software, and the instructors were mighty impressed with the products they came up with.

after the awards, the kids rode back to the student dorms in the vans that had been their transportation around town all week.  after checking out, we went to dinner with aunt nancy, ben, & jonathan.  they were headed home after, but we were staying the night in college station.

after dinner, we drove around and showed the girls a few places we lived when we were in school, circa 1994-98.  things were eerily familiar and very different at the same time.  some of the places looked frozen in time, but i no doubt know they have seen LOTS of students pass thru since our time here.  it’s funny how much you forget, almost like you were a totally different person.  it’s even funnier how my standards have changed in 20 years and i would likely have a very hard time living in any of those places again.

then big sister wanted to show us where she was on campus most days.  we wandered onto campus from university drive, but we were quickly sidetracked when we saw signs leading to the bonfire memorial.  we explained to the girls what bonfire was and about our experiences there.  i only went in 1994, but daddy went every year he was here thru 1997.  the tragic collapse in 1999 seems so long ago, but visiting the memorial takes you right back to the grief and sadness that all aggies will share forever.

we eventually made it to the langford architecture building, where sister attended classes all week – but unfortunately (not surprisingly) it was locked.  this is where daddy & i took most of our classes, too, and it totally looked the exact same, expect for the card reader security on the doors.  same concrete interior, same globe light fixtures, same cantilevered design.  oh, how the memories came flooding back!  the grounds around this area seemed oddly smaller, like buildings were somehow closer together, but that is one of the tricks time plays on us all, i guess.

after breakfast the next day, we checked out of our hotel and did more exploring around town.  we drove by the house in bryan that daddy lived in with, like, 9 other people.  still looked like termites holding hands...

we went to hobby lobby, which is no longer located on harvey road like when i worked there.  we ran into target, which also happened to be near where daddy and i had our first date.
we went t-shirt shopping at aggieland outfitters & hullabaloo ave, which is right next to the subway daddy used to work at in southgate.  little sister got a hoodie and i got a t-shirt.  the t-shirt big sister wanted was not available in her size, so we headed to the mall to the other aggieland outfitters.

we found her size shirt, plus another one for me, at the mall.  then we stopped by taste of the tropics (again) for smoothies, and then got on the road headed home.  about 4 miles out of town, big sister remembered that she had left her camp folder in the hotel room.  so we u-turned and raced back to the hotel.  we had already checked out, so our key card no longer worked, but the nice lady at the front desk was able to call housekeeping and they found the folder still in our room.  big sister was so happy she had not lost it.  so, once again, we said “see ya later” to aggieland, hoping we will be returning again soon.