It has been a busy week at the Seitz household! Allison went off to college this past week. Before she left, she was trying to finish up her paperwork for the Girl Scout Gold Award Final Report. She edited a videotape that I made of her presentation at the Nature Center as well as finishing up all the questions she had to answer. And she has another article in our local paper-this one is a full page!  Besides putting together her end report, I had her fill out an application to become a life long member of the Girl Scouts. When the girl's graduate, the council offers them a one time discount on being a lifelong member so we took advantage of the offer. And Allison felt compelled to help out with the training of the goalies for the new Mt Hebron Field Hockey team. The new team was chosen a week ago, and started their full training last week so she spent a few hours each day giving them pointers and working out with them. I think she enjoyed that the most! She also treated the team to popsicles. And of course she finished packing for school!

On WEds night we packed up our van and drove down to Salisbury on the Eastern shore. It is about a 2.5hr drive. Earlier that morning Allison dropped off Cookie at the kennel. We stayed overnight in Salisbury as our check in time was at 7:30 am. Tom and I were amazed at how organized the whole move in process was as the school assigned students to help out. All we had to do was take everything out of the van and they carried everything up to Allison's dorm room. The volunteers all were members of the sports teams and sororities and fraternities. So we arrived before Allison's roommate and had everything set up in just an hour. Even a small fish tank! Afterwards we visited a vendor fair with lots of freebies from local restuarants and services-food, cups, pens, drinks, coupons. We stocked Allison up with goodies. We then ran some errands for last minute items at Target and stopped for chinese food for lunch. It was just incredibly hot and humid so we spent most of our time searching out the air conditioned buildings. We also stopped at the bookstore to pick up the rest of Allison's school books and check out her mailbox. And of course I had to get a sweatshirt. Finally in the afternoon we met Allison's roommate, Melania. Her family is also from Maryland. There are many students that attend the school from all over the east coast including Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia and North Carolina. And Allison knows alot of students that she went to her high school that are also attending Salisbury.  Turns out that Allison's roommate, Melania's family is originally from the Detroit area-Warren. And Melania's mom attended Wayne State University and also graduated in the Occupational Therapy program just as I did, only 1 year ahead of my class! She works as an OT in the school system.

What an incredibly small world! And pretty amazing since Allison and her roommate were randomly placed.  After Melania moved in, the girls were whisked off with their Orientation groups. We had a brief Welcome presentation from the school President and they took an aerial photo of the new freshman class and passed out backpacks and tshirts for the class of 2017. Afterwards they treated us all to ice cream and all the parents and families said goodbye and headed home. So far it sounds like Allison is having a great time! They have lots of orientation programs scheduled this week, but they also have lots of fun activities too. Like the hypnotist show that Allison volunteered in! She reports sitting on the stage for the whole 90 minute show, and faking it. But her friends thought she was actually hypnotized!  So we plan on visiting Allison next week so that we can visit Busch Gardens over Memorial Day Weekend. Both Allison and Scott start school this Monday.

Scott has been wrapping up some work for his boy scout badges and his summer school book report. He also had a Boy Scout Patrol leader meeting this past week. He was happy to ride his bike up to the church by himself for the meeting, but it is starting to get dark earlier. Although we did get a light for his bike. He is also excited to be riding the bus home from school this year.

And Tom and I attended a parent's meeting/boy scout picnic this past weekend. We enjoyed chatting with the small number that showed up, eating hamburgers and meeting a new family that recently moved here to Baltimore from Wisconsin.  And of course Tom and I volunteered to help organize a few of the boy scout outings this coming year. But Tom would not volunteer to be in charge of the popcorn sales!

I have been extra busy at work since our owner decided to take over as the administrator too. He wants the facility beds filled, so he is taking in a lot of patients all at once. Which means we therapists are obliged to complete evaluations on everyone. Since it is extra busy, and since some of the staff is on vacation or attending classes, I volunteered to go in to work on Saturday. I will probably work on Labor Day as well since we will be heading off to Williamsburg on Friday after a swing by to pick up Allison.  

Here are some photos of Allison teaching her Bird Nature Trail class at the Robinson Nature Center-in the class, on the trail and making pine cone bird feeders, as well as Move In Day at Salisbury University, her dorm and dorm room and the Business School.  And Scott's visit to Little Italy.