The Dawg's are Callin'!

Tuesday I dropped my oldest son off at college.  What an emotional day that was.  I am so proud of him for getting into the college of his choice.  It's not easy to get into the University of Georgia, but he worked hard and got excellent grades in high school and it paid off.

Of course, y'all know me, it couldn't just be a simple drive to UGA, there had to be some drama!  Seth's girlfriend Samantha wanted to go with me to take Seth, so we had to wait until she finished her morning classes at 10:30 before we could head out.  That wasn't an issue because they had told us at orientation that the girls would be moving in in the morning and the guys in the afternoon, so we had planned on leaving mid morning anyway.  Well, leave it to me to fall back asleep after getting my two younger boys off to school.  I woke up at 10:15 and even Seth was still sleeping.  So there we were, just rolling out of bed when we had planned to be loaded up and ready to go around that time!

We quickly loaded the van with all of Seth's worldly goods, including his bike, and went to pick up Samantha.  Let me just say a few things about our van.  I hate it.  It's a 1991 Chevy Conversion Van - you know those vans that are so big they won't even fit in your garage?  Some cars might leave an oil spot in your driveway -  the van has left a rust stain!  It has mini blinds and curtains in it in a lovely country blue that has faded to gray.  The air doesn't work.  It has logos on the windows from the local paintball course.  People assume we own the paintball course.  We don't.  My husband and sons like to play paintball and were once on a team.  I guess that is reason enough to put logos all over your van.  We bought this van a couple of years ago from a family friend after the hubs lost his job and his company car.  It runs and it gets us from here to there so I will count it as a blessing.  Another blessing to count is that just as we were almost out of town the van died.  The blessing is that it happened close to home and not on the way from Athens, late at night, in the rain, far from home.  We were maybe 5 miles from the house when I heard a weird noise. It was hard to tell what it was because the van is loud and we had all the windows rolled down because it was 100 degrees outside already.  I wasn't sure whether the weird sound came from the van or not, but then the guages started spinning and acting crazy.  I turned around and headed home.  We ended up pulling over on the side of the road and parking in front of the Vietnamese Restaurant when I saw smoke coming from under the hood!

Samantha called her daddy.  I guess another blessing for getting a late start was that he was on his lunch hour and was able to come to our rescue.  Luckily it was nothing major - just a busted hose!  Then the real blessing happened.  He offered to let us take his nice new, air conditioned SUV to Athens!  Samantha took her daddy back to work then came back to get Seth and me.  We were able to get everything except for the bike in the car.  We made it to Seth's dorm at 4:45pm.  We didn't have any trouble finding the school, but we'd left the campus map in the van so it took us a while to find his dorm.

Because we were one of the last ones to be moving in we were able to snag a big cart and we got everything to the dorm in one load!  Samantha and I got to work and had his dorm room set up in no time flat.  I do have one question for the dorm people.  Can you not have a ladies room in a guys dorm?  After driving all that way I was in dire need of the facilities!

Here is the layout of his dorm room.

Here is Seth bed all made.  I'm sure this will be the last time we find it this way.  I couldn't help it, I had to go with the school colors.

Here is Seth checking to see if the internet worked in his room.

Just my luck, my camera battery died right after taking these two pictures, so I didn't get the pictures of his desk area and his new bulletin board and UGA poster that Seth's baby brother bought him at the book fair at school.  I'm sure this will be the last time this room looks so neat.  Also his bed can be lofted, so he may decide to raise it up once he gets his fridge. His aunt bought him a dorm fridge but it wasn't going to arrive here until after he'd moved so she had it shipped straight to Athens. 

It sure has been different around the house without Seth.  Number one thing is I have to unload the dishwasher now!  I miss my boy, but The Dawgs were callin' and he's started the next phase of his life.