Aka, Julianna and I get to hang out together all week and play!!!
Juls is now 9 weeks into college and enjoying every minute still. She was very happy not coming home for the weekends. Turns out she enjoyed some real weekend college life heading to popular college bars with her roommate/mentor, Suzi. They practiced smart partying by taking the bus and never returning home much past 2am ; ) she is there to have a typical experience after all, so this is all good. She even had to employ some refusal tactics after getting that "uh oh feeling"....good girl!!
Classes are coming along and Julianna has been doing research on Down Syndrome for her power point presentation in the Engaged Citizens class. Yesterday, in fact, we were at a Cutting Edge open house and another woman (past CE student) asked Juls what kind of DS she had. Juls immediately responded with "Trisomy 21", I was pretty impressed....new knowledge on the tip of her tongue.
Every Friday Julianna and I get to spend the day running errands, playing, gym workouts etc. But last Friday was the beginning of Spring Break for Edgewood so she got to pack up all her dirty clothes and come home for the week. We had a nice dinner planned around the fire (the weather hadn't changed yet) to celebrate her homecoming. Juls was very excited to show us all the work she'd been doing in school and proceeded to read to us all the research she'd been working on. It was a side of Julianna I'd never seen before and one that made me feel so excited for her new endeavors and future in college. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product.
We took a day trip to Milwaukee just for fun since Juls and I had never been there. It's a very cool city. We ran right into a week early St. Patrick's Day parade and Juls had her first ever green beer!
On Saturday this last week Juls had a shift at Old Navy so we dropped her off and took our first bike ride around Lake Monona, it was wonderful. She had stated that she really just wanted to get back to her house that day even though the roomies would still be gone and she didn't have school until Monday. So we had her pack up and after her work and our ride she shopped for food and off we went to her house. To Juls surprise and delightment, her roommate Hannah was there already. They were practically jumping up and down! As Neal and I drove off we remarked that Juls seemed like she couldn't get us outta there fast enough! I never heard from her again until I ran into her on Monday morning at the open house on campus. Typical!
The interviews are wrapping up for the prospective students in the fall. Now comes the hard part of choosing amongst these 25 amazing applicants. Housing is a bit of a problem. There are only 10 beds for 20 students that will be there in the fall. Some of the students do live at home or possibly in their own apartments but most, understandably, want to be a part of the campus living. I have no idea where Julianna will be as far as living is concerned for next year. She loves the house she's in but would very much like to be in a dorm too. We are looking over classes for next semester and still need to meet to put that all together.
The weather has turned into a beautiful early spring here. Everything is greening up and people are outside enjoying the sun. Edgewood College is right on Lake Wingra. It is gorgeous!! Julianna and I took a little walk around part of the lake last week. What lucky students to be situated in such a lovely setting.
More as it comes in.....as they say in the newsroom!
