Getting ready for college

Summer is getting close to the end with only one more week before school starts. Freshman year in college, junior year in high school, and a 7th grader! How did that happen? The best part is that they are all excited. And I am eagerly awaiting August 26th - the magical date where the university finance system updates and somehow merges financial aid, payment plans, and all their fees making the ugly invoice, claiming that we owe them more than 8000$ by August 31st, go away. Here I am - seeing that bill for the first time:

Lucky for my they are very nice and patient in the walk in financial office and got me calmed down and for the first time someone finally explained to me exactly what 6000$ in personal expenses actually covers and why it is only on the financial aid document and not in the university system. Bottom line is that with we are all covered with federal aid, some additional loans, a bit of scholarship, a little work study, and money that we can spare. A big puzzle that will start over every single year (for the next 10 years before we are finally done with putting kids through college😖).

Not surprisingly the last week of summer will be spent getting ready for Ulrik to move out. Since Kristian and I have never lived in a dorm room before, we don’t really know what to expect, but Ulrik is now the owner of a small fridge, a top mattress (for the plastic covered dorm mattress), a shower caddy, a brand new MacBook Pro (mandatory....... seriously.......), and about 200.000 little stickers with his name on, that he puts on every piece of weird tools the art school has required him to purchase prior to start. Apparently a rug will be nice too, since the floors get cold in the winter, but the plan is to wait and see what is still needed once he actually sees his dorm room for the first time and meets his new roommate.

And poor mom here has good days and bad days. Good days where I am so happy for him and can’t wait to see him grow and learn. And bad days where I don’t sleep at night and is absolutely sure, that it will be a total disaster. Sounds familiar? Anyone? And of course it will all start over this year as Teresa enters junior year in high school, where college and SAT scores will be on everyones mind. We have already started to receive pamphlets and emails from colleges across the US. Ugh.

Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp

Well. If you play an instrument in the school in Ann Arbor you will get the opportunity to audition for Blue Lake summer camp and of course we allowed Luca to do that. He even got a scholar ship, but we still thought the price was a bit steep. But Oh. My. Gosh! We were complete ignorants of what we actually signed the kid up for! It is a giant camp. 1400 campers for luca’s session all playing band/orchestra. All in uniforms. And all being taught by performing artists. Here he is for his final concert in “the Shell”:

The entire time I was there I felt like I was in a Harry Potter movie. 1400 kids in uniforms all there to do same thing (music, not magic, but still). Here he is in front of his flute practice space:

And here is in front his cabin (with the worlds most tired camp counselor inside. Wonder why? LOL)

As you can probably tell from the pictures, everything is outside and the space is gigantic. And full of bugs! Here’s the arms of the poor kid who unfortunately seems to be a bug magnet:

But bug bites or no bug bites, he loved it there and the kid we picked up has grown in so many ways since we dropped him off. There can be no doubt that he is going back next year!

Too cheesy?

Howdy. I am in the airport after spending a few days in Wisconsin. And a visit to Wisconsin will inevitably raise the question “is there such a thing as too cheesy? Before I got here I would have expected the local answer to be a loud and clear “NOPE!”. It turns out though, that the concept of “too much” and “cheese” in the same sentence will throw any local off. They simply do not understand the question. But for myself the answer will be a loud and clear “YES!” after trying to politely eat just a little bit of deep fried cheddar with ranch on the side. And also seeing cheese hats for the first time was a somewhat scary experience.

But why did I even go if not for the cheese? Well, it was all business - sort of - as one of my former colleagues has her own lab at Marquette and needed some help to teach her students to perform brain surgeries in mice. And as it happened to be one of my favorite former colleagues we also had plans outside of the lab. She did ask me if I had anything I wanted to see or do in Milwaukee and I don’t know about you, but I do not carry around a Milwaukee bucket list ready to go....... Lucky for us the state fair was taking place and if you want Wisconsin action the state fair is the place of:Cow washing

Cream puffs

Bacon with bacon dip

And...... drum roll please! The world famous 50cent milk bar:

We even took rides together:

And watched pig races

And I have to say that I had the most fun I have ever had at a state fair.

I really hope that this is not the last time Deanna and I will be going on adventures together:

(Yes. That is a bacon hat!)

Significant happenings

You all know that feeling when nothing and everything seems to happen simultaneously, right? The past few weeks have had a lot of lunches, and dog walks, and work (but no more pulling ground hogs off the patio. Phew). And in between all of this there has been quite significant things happening such as:

Teresa turning 16! We even got her a car:

A very small mini. LOL. She was not overly excited......

Kristian and I having our 20 years anniversary. TWENTY years!!!! How did that happen? I don’t even know. But when I see pictures from back then it is kind of obvious that we look just a teeny tiny bit older now.........

We finally made it inside the Big House for an actual sports event. Kristian won tickets at work for the Manchester United versus Liverpool soccer game. And with about 110.000 people attending it felt very much like the real deal. My only complaint is that the fans of both teams dressed in red and white, so you couldn’t tell them apart. But my domo wallet fit in really well❤️

And I have booked a ticket to Seoul, where I will be attending a conference in October. I have never been to Asia before, so I am ridiculous excited (and I obviously pick my conferences from the scientific content only. Ahem). My only concern is that I will accidentally order seafood by mistake #WhenYouHateSeafoodButDontSpeakKorean