Another One Gone

Len, the girls, and I drove Daniel to the Josephinum last week.  The house is emptying little by little.  Sigh.

Some images of the latest departure:

Daniel decluttered and organized his room, resulting in so much spread out STUFF that he slept on the couch for several nights.  :-)

On his second to last morning at home, Marianna and Rebecca were inspired to make him a special breakfast.  Fortunately he's such a solid sleeper they were able to putter around the kitchen without disturbing him.

Highlights:  The mini vase of crape myrtle and mint, the home-sewn napkin, and the drop scones.  I coached the girls to use a bag of scone mix (homemade), increasing the milk just a little bit (to 3/4 cup) so that the dough was too sticky to knead and cut.  They dropped it with a scoop, sprinkled with coarse sugar and baked.  That small variation saved a lot of time!

Dan had no special dinner request, but included pumpkin cheesecake in his list of possible goodbye desserts.

Pontifical College Josephinum:  a view from the entrance

 Moving In

 Dan's room is small but private.  He shares a half bath with an adjoining room; showers are down the hall.

 The view from his window

After three college drop offs, this is now an official tradition:  shopping for items left at home or that we didn't know were needed.  This has included door organizers and hardware (Lauren), pillows (David), and goggles (Daniel).  It's always something!

 

In the past Len and I have kept the college send-off to ourselves, but this time Marianna and Rebecca joined us.  We stayed overnight because the Josephinum shared morning mass and brunch with families on Sunday.  Here we are the night before at a local Italian restaurant.

 Pizza with pesto, shrimp, goat cheese, and roasted tomatoes--everyone wanted a taste!

As always, leaving a child at college is bittersweet.  We're grateful when the school is a good fit (so far we're three times fortunate), and glad to watch each one growing and maturing.  But we've missed them all.

Even though we know as parents that our children are never truly ours, it's easy to forget while they're under our roof.  We can't help but remember now . . .