Morning Glories

I both love, and hate, getting up early on a day off from work.

I hate it, of course, because I need all the beauty sleep I can possibly get, and so to be up at 7 on MLK Day isn't going to help clear up the "sleep deficit."

But there are advantages. David drove us down to Woodbridge today so he can do his Communications Merit Badge at Occoquan's Merit Badge Day. If he succeeds today, he'll have completed the last one for his Eagle, and can turn to doing his project, which he decided on the way down would be at Pohick Bay Park if he can make the connection.

And so before Grandma's final eye surgeon appointment, I have a few minutes at Stonebridge to sip coffee and watch the sun come up. It's cold today, not even 20 and with a brisk damp wind that truly brings winter into the body. There's hardly anyone out at this time, which means traffic is reasonable and there's plenty of parking near the Starbucks. Coffee's hot, plenty of seats, and the warm sun creeping over the stores across the street reminds me how phototropic I am.

To be sure, the day will evaporate in a haze of activity. Merit Badge Day, Mom's doctor's appointment, picking up the boy, reviewing more of my homework for the FY 2017 and FY 2016 budgets, picking up Sarah from her sleepover last night, working on my writing, working on David's financial aid applications, serving on an Eagle Board of Review and at the Troop meeting with David tonight...much will be packed into just these next 15 hours.

But for right now, I can savor the sun, I can enjoy the calm of the early morning, and I can give thanks and praise for it. And despite getting up early, that's not a bad way to spend a morning.

Merry Christmas 2014!

Instead of making copies of our Christmas letter this year and mailing them all, or creating a new site to capture the year, we're listing here some of the highlights so you can get caught up, and dive in more where you like, to learn more about our year.

courtesy Glenn Cook Photography

Our year involved tearing out the master bathroom for a major renovation, but six weeks later it looked better than we had imagined it could. Up next: the kitchen? The kids' bathroom? Our annual ski trip with the Scouts to Canaan Valley was in February, and then in August we flew out West, the kids' first visit someplace west of West Virginia, for a very full experience of Nevada, California and a little of Oregon. We also had a nice weekend in a cabin at Deep Creek Lake in October with our Fergie, who passed a set of milestones this year. Not only was it her first "puppiversary," or a year after we got her, but in June came the time when (we estimate) she had spent more of her life with us than before--I guess that means she's found her Forever Home. She turned three in October, and kept wryly amusing us with her antics throughout the year. Our puppums is a happy doggie and has attached herself quite firmly to Mary lately.

If you look up the address for South County Middle School in the Fairfax County tax records, you will see that yes, in fact, Sarah *does* own the school. She's having a wonderful time as an eighth grader in Advanced Academics, as a Peer Helper at school, playing guitar, doing Girls on Track, and (most recently) being elected the school's Vice President. She rejoined Girl Scouts with her friends, with whom she is surrounded most of her free time. In the summer she had her second mission trip with Jeremiah Project, which she really enjoyed and which has her thinking of going as a counsellor someday.

The theme for the year with David was "adolescence," the one-foot-in-one-foot-out nature of being a high school junior. He earned his driver's permit this year, and is making slow progress in learning to drive--it's just not a huge priority for him to do, which baffles his parents. His burgeoning leadership was recognized in the winter when his Scout troop elected him its Senior Patrol Leader, and he took the first  (quite halting) steps into the world of girls and dating. But by far, his biggest adventures were a weeklong mission trip to Costa Rica in the summer, and beginning the great college hunt--with visits to William and Mary (two stories to tell there), Berkeley, U of Arizona, and his current #1 choice, Arizona State. Where will he end up? Tune in next year!

Mary celebrated her tenth anniversary with American Bankruptcy Institute this year, and accompanied Sarah on her Girl Scout troop's visit to New York City in the fall. Eric remains in Finance Division at the FBI, although at the end of the year is beginning a six-month rotation to work temporarily in Procurement instead of Budget, a new adventure. In the summer, he had a much-appreciated chance to spend a week at Harvard Business School, and is pursuing continuing ed into the new year. He's also still drumming, with Refresh at Sydenstricker UMC as well as with LifeSign at Burke UMC, loving every minute. This year he also began serving as the Chaplain of Boy Scout Troop 688, and will have a chance next summer to take a long walk in the desert with David--they both will be part of a dozen-strong crew hiking Philmont.

As 2014 fades, we hope it's been a good year for you and your family, and we pray for the light of the season to guide you throughout the new year. Join us here throughout 2015 for more of our adventures, and be sure to share your own--and stay in touch! We very much enjoyed the visits we had this year from Courtney, Naomi, Monica, Mom & Dad Tarrier, and many others…come back again!

Merry Christmas and Happy 2015 from us all!

Beginning the College Hunt, Part IV

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new frontrunner in the college sweepstakes.

After touring Arizona State on Monday, David announced that it is now his favorite among the four he's now toured (W&M, U of Arizona, and in distant fourth, Berkeley, round out the list). He likes the feel of the campus and the flexibility with which ASU appears to treat its students: he can build an anthropology degree as a BA or as a BS, and he can focus it towards particular areas (like archaeology), and he can double-major or minor in Native American studies to complement it (or he can minor in Theatre Design and Production). And I think he also likes that ASU's admissions process is noncompetitive (you either meet the thresholds or you don't), and that the freshman dorm for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (read: anthro majors live here) is the brand-newly-remodeled 15-story Manzanita Hall, overlooking the football stadium on one side and campus on the other.

Manzanita Hall (rear) and Palo Verde East dorms

On the ASU bridge, looking back towards dorms and the stadiums.

Palm Walk, the main north-south pathway through campus

He doesn't seem to mind that Tempe and Phoenix are a much busier place; or, that the campus was (or felt to me) a bit crowded--although even at class change, the crowds were very reasonable, despite the size of the school. He also doesn't seem fazed about being one of 9,000+ freshmen--although perhaps that will give others pause.

He does caution, though, that he still wants to see the others on his list--UVA, Radford, and Wake Forest, and last night Texas A&M made a return to the wish list. But if he had to pick right now, my son would want to become a Sun Devil. What will his final pick be? Stay tuned…we've a long way until next fall!

Beginning the College Hunt, Part III

As previously described, David has begun looking for college options he likes, and following on the success of his conversation with a grad student at William and Mary, he had identified both the University of Arizona and Arizona State as two places he wanted to consider. This weekend is the long break between first and second quarters at school, so he and I flew westward on Halloween night.

We toured UA today. The campus reminded me a little of Berkeley, with its gated entrance and Western feel to it. We walked around much of the southern part of campus, including the residence halls, student rec center (wow), student union, and library. Here's some of what we saw:

Main Gate to the University of Arizona

The "Mall" features the single longest strip of grass in Arizona…but also this native display (and one Virginian)

The Mall, looking east

Admin building and part of the student union at left across the Mall

Found his building; lost his sense of exploration somewhere around here though :)

The boy, surveying the campus (and football stadium to the right) from the top of  Likin Hall dorm

David's conclusion: so far this is his favorite out-of-state choice, but he's not yet ready to say which is in the lead, UA or W&M. He liked the atmosphere of the place, feeling more at home than he did at Berkeley, and the people were friendly. I think he also liked that the tour guides were only a couple of years older than him--so he could kinda see himself in their place. He saw three levels of dorm, and says he'd be just as comfortable in the cheaper one (good!). He wishes he had a chance to see more of the archaeology program, but knows we may have more of an opportunity Monday in Tempe.

My takeaways? (1) Campus is d-e-a-d on a Saturday. With 35,000 students in October I had expected to get more of a sense of the atmosphere; we did not count on the fact that only 6,600 of them live on campus, mostly freshmen, who were still sleeping in much of the day. And (2) It didn't feel too large and overwhelming, or too crowded--so, a much different vibe from Berkeley. Closer to a W&M feel, without oak trees and 50 degrees warmer.

ASU, up next on Monday!

Beginning the College Hunt, Part II

When we last left our hero, David had found his way to the basement of Washington Hall on the campus of William and Mary, where he had been told the anthropology department lived.  We passed students on the stairs as we descended, leading us to think a class had just let out; when we arrived at the anthropology lab, the woman there invited us in to look around.

For the next hour, hour and a half, David was truly in his element.

The woman he met, Ms Victor, is a graduate student going for her PhD, and she began showing David around the lab and pulling out samples of their work.  She shared with him bits of pottery, and a collection of handmade nails she pulled from a recent dig in Montana, and David was engaging right back with her on her finds.  He was asking questions, and commenting on the artifacts in his confident way, showing he knew a thing or two about history and how these artifacts connected with others.  (Knowing this could take awhile, I sent Anna and Megan off to go explore the business school; I tried to fade into the walls as much as I could, to let the two of them talk.)

Ms. Victor showing David some pottery samples from a recent dig.

Ms. Victor was terrific: she gave David a lot to think about in terms of the field of archaeology and what the good programs are around the country that he should look into.  We learned a lot about the branches of the field that we'd never known before: for instance, a good general overview of anthropological archaeology would be found at Michigan, Michigan State, Berkeley, Syracuse, maybe Santa Clara; David should not apply to Boston University unless he only wanted to work in Europe for a career.  But if he wanted to study prehistoric archaeology, especially focused on Mesoamerican cultures (Inca, Aztec, etc.), then Arizona and Arizona State are the places to go.  And we'd never heard of "nautical archaeology," but I guess it makes sense: if the river's changed course and has now overrun the site you want to explore, you need to be scuba-certified and you need to know how to work underwater in the silt of a river or ocean bed.  And that's taught at Texas A&M, of all places.

She talked with him about careers in the field, and what each degree would allow him to do.  If all he wants to do is dig in the dirt, and work on a site as part of a team, then a bachelors will suffice; if he wants to be a project lead or work in "cultural resource management" (i.e., the people who go through before a freeway gets built, to make sure there's nothing there), then the MA is needed; and if he wants to explore his own interests and build his own program, then that's the PhD.

I think David added someone new to his fan club that day; on discovering he was "only" a sophomore, she twice commented how she was blown away at how well he carried himself in this professional encounter and how his passion for archaeology came through.  And by the end of their time together, he came away with two huge opportunities.  One was, she invited him to come down sometime, even on a weekend, and help her in the lab: cleaning, coding, labeling the artifacts, and learning what the lab experience is like.  And she also gave us a copy of a flyer for a summer dig that W&M undergraduates are doing in conjunction with Colonial Williamsburg.  She told him she knows the project director and she thought he'd be thrilled to have David maybe come down for a few days out of the 10-week project and gain some fieldwork experience too.

We both left there flying.  So let me see if I got this straight: a professional in David's chosen field took him seriously enough to have extended offers and opportunities for him to gain practical experience the summer before his junior year.  We also got about a half-dozen other colleges David needs to look into, to see whether they interest him; and, perhaps most importantly, he had such a positive, inspiring experience with his first contact with a college.

The whole day could not have gone any better; it truly felt God-blessed.  He commented later that there wasn't anything he didn't like about W&M, and so now he has something good to compare other colleges to.  And perhaps most importantly, he got to see what terrific experiences he could be getting into, and what it'll take for him to be admitted into that world.  Maybe this will help him focus and pour some more energy into studies and tests, to help get him positioned for all that he had the merest taste of that afternoon in the basement of Washington Hall.  Let the hunt begin!

Beginning the College Hunt, Part I

This past Friday, Anna and Megan Schipono and David and I went to the kids' first college tour experience, and it was probably just about everything I could have secretly hoped it would be.

When I began my college hunt, back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth and great flocks of wild chickens darkened the skies, college tours were *maybe* the summer between sophomore and junior year, but certainly a spring-break-junior-year activity.  These days, and with this boy, it's better to start sooner.  One of his (now college-attending) Boy Scout friends had confided in me that when he was a sophomore, his folks took him on a tour, and it sharpened his desire: Yes, I really want that, and so I'd better start getting serious about studying in order to get it.  Can't hurt to get started, then.

The proto-archaeologist had become aware that William and Mary, down at Williamsburg, had an excellent archaeology/anthropology program on the colonial period (duh), so he asked to visit.  Unbeknownst to us, Megan had discovered their marketing program and also asked for a tour.  Which both sets of parents independently set up for the exact same day and hour during spring break.

After arriving and parking and lunch at the Cheese Shop, we walked onto campus and into the oldest part of campus, the iconic Wren Building (oldest extant academic building in America) dead ahead.  We explored that, then wandered through the old campus and onto the newer pieces, eventually discovering the marble floors of the business school.

Megan and David in front of the Wren Building

Our tour lasted a shade over two hours; 45 minutes of overview by the school in an auditorium at the student center, then off with our senior tour guide, Max, who walked us through many features of the campus.  We saw the cafeteria, the Crim Dell and learned of its curse, then saw the library, the chemistry building, and eventually over to a dorm room, before finishing with English lit and returning through the Wren Building's arched passageway.

Max leading the tour, with Megan, David, and Anna

At the conclusion, Max told a story about convocation: arriving freshmen have to endure a speech by the president in the oldest part of the campus, out where the kids had their picture taken.  Then the new freshmen walk through Wren Building to the growing sound of applause, and on reaching the other side, they find the entirety of the rest of the University there, all green and gold, clapping, high-fiving, welcoming them to W&M, and from that moment on, he said, "you are Tribe."  That really resonated with David, and I have to confess, with me too.

On parting, Max told us where to find the anthropology department, and we headed to the basement of Washington Building.  A class had just let out, and when we poked our head into the lab, the woman there called out, "Come on in and look around!"

That began an hour-and-a-half conversation I'm still processing.   (To Be Continued)