Hello Again, ASU

Can you believe that Chip is old enough to visit colleges?  It doesn't seem possible.  He was just a little boy playing with Legos and chasing his mother around with light sabers begging me to battle him.  He always wanted to be the bad guy!

I was pretty terrible at light saber battling - but I could come up with a whopper of a story about some stormtroopers coming into the cul-de-sac to attack our house that made it seem like we were in imminent danger.  Has the Death Star ever landed in your front yard? Doesn't that sound like wholesome fun?  Once I would start spinning a story, Chip would say "We have to get to our base!"  Our base was my bed and we would scramble up the stairs and dive under the covers to our tent hideout. We would whisper and try to come up with some way to defeat them.  He would keep peeking out to make sure we were still safe.  I would make him come up with a really, really good battle plan, which mostly consisted of him being the head fighter and me the backup.  He knew my limitations with a light saber.  I would tell him I could hear them coming into the house and it was time for action.  We would creep out of the bedroom, sometimes in an army crawl or with our backs up against the wall.  We would slowly go down the stairs whispering about how scared we were, but we had to protect the house.  By the time we hit the landing Chip would be screaming at me and pointing out where the bad guys were and where to cover him. Never mind, that there were no bad guys except in our imaginations!  We would tear through the downstairs, looking in every closet and around every corner, whacking them with our light sabers until we wiped them all out.  We defeated them every single time and would high five and celebrate. Then Chip would say "Let's do it again."

I just asked Chip if he remembered those days and he said "Oh yeah, they were the best!"  I asked if it scared him and he said "No, I loved it!"

Well, if you loved it then quit growing up and looking at colleges you little brat!

He won't.

He won't stop growing up. And so, we will continue to look at colleges.

Chip has already been accepted into Arizona State University's WP Carey School of Business and offered a nice little academic scholarship.  Go Chip!  Now ASU is Harry's alma mater so we are pretty familiar with the area, but Harry lived and went to school mostly at the downtown Phoenix location and ASU's business school is on the Tempe campus.  We had a two day fall break at school, so we flew out to Phoenix for the long weekend to check it out to see if it felt like a fit for Chip.

We were so lucky that Harry was able to join us for the weekend and we had the best time. Me and Chip flew in from Austin and Harry flew from Dallas and we both arrived by 7:30 a.m. in Phoenix.  First stop - breakfast at iHop.  Not sure what that crazy face is that Harry is making, but I was grinning like a cat to have both my boys together for four days of fun.

We checked into our hotel shortly after breakfast so we could watch college football!  It was a great Embassy Suites in Scottsdale.  What a lovely view.  

Saturday night we went to a sports bar to eat, drink and watch more football.  Happy, happy.  

The next day we had tickets to see the Arizona Cardinals play the Atlanta Falcons.  

We had a great time from the moment we tried to park until the final missed extra point that would have tied the game and sent it into overtime.  It was a wild ride!  

The parking attendants at the Cardinals games take their job seriously.  They have cones and signs and tons of people out there trying to keep things moving.  We needed to find a cash lot and just got into a line that looked like it could be favorable for cash parking.  It was not.  There were several cars in front of us and they obviously were also in the wrong line. We watched this tiny intense woman parking attendant lose her mind trying to get people to follow simple directions.  

"Can we park here?"  

"No, please turn around and go down two blocks and you can park there."  

"Can we just drop off people here?" 

"No, you have to go down to the drop off zone.  No one can get dropped off here."  

Well, people were hard of hearing or gave no damns what she just said and van doors were opening and people were getting out. Right after she told them they could not do that. 

She says again "Hey, you cannot drop off here - go down to the drop off zone."  They all look confused and climb back in the car.  Then they drive twenty feet away and the doors open again and they start climbing out and she runs down the street yelling "Get back in the car.  Do not get out of your car!"  Now she is pissed.  AGAIN, they look so confused, but comply and get back in their car - but this time they slammed the doors and were obviously not happy.  We were cracking up. 

The next two cars in front of us make similar mistakes.  One car was going the wrong way and one was going into the wrong parking lot and the tiny intense lady didn't know which car to go running after first.  She was trying so hard to do a good job and it was just futile.

It is finally our turn and we pull up to this guy and I say "I have already gathered that I cannot park here.  Please tell me where to go."  He super casually points to a car doing a three point turn in the middle of the intersection and says "Just follow these idiots."  We laughed so hard.  

We followed those idiots and found a spot to park.  It was a gorgeous day! 

We hung outside and grabbed a little something to eat in the FanZone. 

Then we went into the stadium and walked all the way around.  There was the smell of coffee in the air and me and Harry were on the hunt for it!  We found it and then headed to our seats. 

I absolutely love walking a few steps behind my boys and watching them interact.  It makes me insanely happy.  They say the funniest things to each other (and also the meanest).  

The home team was about to go back to the locker room and we were trying to hustle over to our seats to get a close up of Kyler Murray warming up.  I started speed walking behind a guy and following him as he bobbed and weaved through the crowd.  The boys were hustling to keep up with me, so of course I went even faster.  The boys were wowed by my moves, laughing trying to keep up and were also very confused about what was happening and why.  I'm not even sure, but it makes me smile now just remembering how out of breath we were and how funny they thought it was.

Good times!  The two teams played awful, but damn if it wasn't a great game!  The Falcons tied it up at the last second and just needed the extra point to send it to overtime and they MISSED the extra point.  Brutal. 

That evening Harry went out with some of his old college pals and me and Chip hung out at the hotel. 

Monday, we did a little walking on the golf course.  We went out for lunch, went to the movies and at the last minute decided to catch the Phoenix Suns pre-season game.

Love these guys. 

Tuesday, was our college tour day.  It was a beautiful day.  They did a great little presentation about ASU and then we got broken into smaller groups and went on a walking tour of the campus.

This is the WP Carey School of Business.  Isn't that the coolest looking building? 

It is a beautiful campus....feels like you are at a resort instead of a college.  Chip still isn't quite sure that is where he will land, but I am happy he has seen it and has all the information he needs to make his decision. 

Then it got sad.  We had to split up and head to the airport and return to our respective cities.  I

know this is the longest post in the history of the free world - but I have one more story that I just have to tell.  

Our flight was uneventful from Phoenix to Austin, right until we were about to land.  Our plane descended as normal, but when we were maybe 30 ft from putting wheels down on the runway, the plane accelerated and went back up in the sky.  Like we almost landed and then the plane sped up and went back up.  What?  The pilot never came on a said anything.  NOT a WORD.  We flew around for about 10 minutes making turns and banking this way and that and then started to descend again.  Still no announcement from the airline staff.  Me and Chip were looking at each other like, "Does anyone think this is unusual?  Did our landing gear not come down?  Did we almost crash into another plane?  Did our pilot try to land on the wrong runway?  Did he overshoot the runway?  WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON???  We landed fine.  Never knew why that happened.  Isn't that weird? 

If you made it through this entire post, thanks for sticking it out.  This is what happens when I don't blog for a while.  I have a lot to share!  I promise to keep it shorter next time!