<p>Son is on the bus and headed home (3 1/2 hr. ride). Gives me time to put "do not eat" sticky notes on all the Thanksgiving Day food :)</p>
<p>Well all our s's and d's are home for break. I feel like I have my old job back (mom job). It's so nice to feel normal again. Yet, the pangs are so close as Sunday he returns to the university. All parents enjoy your holiday will your beloved children.</p>
<p>We are happy our West Point freshman (Plebe) cadet can come home to Texas fro thanksgiving, he will be home wednesday night until early sunday morning, then a flight back to Newark and bus to WP.</p>
<p>What a wonderful thing to give thanks for - these wonderful young peopel at colege striving and learning and maturing(!)</p>
<p>A slightly delayed flight, but S1 is home... and sleeping in this morning. I'll give him a little break before he has to start helping with the holiday chores. But it was so good to go to sleep last night & know that I had both my boys "tucked in" their own beds for the first time in almost 3 months. Tonight the freshman is taking his younger brother to the movies... that, too, will wear off shortly, I'm sure. But I can still bask in my own fantasy family.</p>
<p>My S is coming home tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oops, I couldn't keep this "secret" longer...</p>
<p>picking up D today, can't wait :D</p>
<p>I can't wait to see her tomorrow. She -- she can't wait to see her friends tomorrow. ;)</p>
<p>I'm so excited, my daughter just changed her flight to come in six hours earlier tomorrow...
...so she can meet her friends for dinner.</p>
<p>Well, at least we'll get to talk on the way home from the airport, should be a lot of traffic ;)</p>
<p>My sophomore daughter will be coming home tomorrow which is great :), but not earthshaking, since I have seen her in October for a one week vacation and for a concert she was in last weekend. </p>
<p>My recent graduate son is working at a job thousands of miles away, and he many not even be able to take Thanksgiving off to see friends a few hours away, let alone come home :(</p>
<p>Those of you who have ALL of your kids at home should be very thankful!</p>
<p>NYMOM - Sorry I didn't get back to this until today. My son has basketball practice because they have a tournament that starts the Friday after Thanksgiving. I would feel a lot worse if I hadn't just had the chance to see him, and if I didn't know that he was going to be in a home for Thanksgiving. The coach did invite any players that couldn't go home to his house for Thanksgiving too!</p>
<p>My news, good and bad:
Good: My son is already here! He arrived on Saturday and will be here all week.
Bad: He's staying at his dad's house. (It's cool, though -I've seen him 3 times already.)</p>
<p>WildChild comes home Wed morning from Phila. He hasn't been to this new "home" since we moved in, although he saw the house before we moved in. D will come home tomorrow night and her boyfriend flies in Thursday morning. First Thanksgiving with both kids in a number of years. Someone was either gone to an athletic event or to another city with a boyfriend.</p>
<p>My son spent yesterday afternoon at his HS visiting teachers, then last night with me! we played Trivial Pursuit, he & his brother watched House... then he came into my room & talked to me for an hour & a half! I felt so lucky. He's never really had a lot of friends in our hometown, so this is really down time for him.</p>
<p>CinciMom... good luck to your son in the bb tournament. Will you get to watch many of his games? My younger son (HS soph) is a bb player, his season is beginning soon, too.</p>
<p>My S never had all that many friends from HS, but he's made many friends from HI in college, so I suspect he'll likely be hanging out with them when he comes home to HI this winter break. Since he'll have only Thursday & Friday away from campus so he can be back for the USC/Notre Dame game on Saturday, we are glad he's decided to spend the holiday with our close family friends in LA (they haven't seen him since we were all there in August). Don't know whether he'll also look up some of his HS friends as well. Since he'll be arriving Wednesady night in Dec, he could go & visit his HS on Thursday and/or Friday if he wanted to & see the teachers & some of the other kids, but that's about a month from now & who knows?</p>
<p>My sister says that her Ds all just hung out with their HS friends when they came home to HI while attending college. She said that often USC kids did hang out with other USC kids when they were home in HI.</p>
<p>HiMom... just so you know... everytime you remind us you live in Hawaii, I suffer intense pangs of jealousy! we were in Maui & Honolulu for our honeymoon 20 years ago... and I remember it as being the most beautiful place I've ever seen. OK, I don't travel much... but I just remember the blues being the bluest... the greens the greenest! What island are you on?</p>
<p>Its good that your son has friends in LA to visit with. Is USC a big draw for Hawaii residents? It sounds like he has a good community to fall back on.</p>
<p>HImom - We're in NY missing our USC freshman who is also spending Thanksgiving in LA. We can't wait for winter break! It made sense for him to stay (he wouldn't miss the Notre Dame game for the world and as you say, USC classes go straight through today..). My sister and nephew will be with him. But it's hard the first time the family isn't together for a family holiday. Hard for ME anyway!!!!!</p>
<p>NYMom, We won't get to see that many of his games this year because of the way they are scheduled. Mostly they play on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons. This year it isn't that critical because being a freshman we don't anticipate him seeing that much playing time this year. That being said we will make it to a few!</p>
<p>We love visiting all other places -- have briefly been in Europe, NYC, LA, SF, DC, Yellowstone, & many national parks, especially in the SW, but home is where our loved ones are, and that's mostly HI. I do love the climate & people.
There are quite a few kids from HI at USC, including 79 freshmen this year & 73 freshmen last year. Of those, about two dozen are from his HS each year, so he has a nice group as a "base." He is mngling with lots of other kids as well.
I suspect there are a LOT of kids hanging around USC this weekend because they want to attend the Saturday USC/Notre Dame game, which is billed as THE game of the week.<br>
One thing I'm very glad about is that USC only closes the dorms for Winter Break & Summer. Some of the other schools close their dorms even for Thanksgiving & long weekends, which is quite a hardship on students who don't live or have loved ones in the area near school.
We live on Oahu--I think we'd find the other islands a bit too rural & rustic, tho nice to visit.
Our son is having a great time & hasn't spoken much about Winter Break--think he's just basking in the present, which is fine with us!</p>
<p>the other shoe dropped! It's thursday afternoon, and S & I just had our first argument. Lets see... it revolved around him 1. not getting out of bed; 2. not putting his stuff away (living off a pile on the floor); 3. incorrectly doing some errand I asked him to do; 4. making a general mess! I knew reality would set in, and the child I sent away 3 months ago would reappear when I least had the time for it (as 15 people descend on us for turkey). Well... at least I recognize this kid now.</p>
<p>How has everyone else fared? How long did it take for the "real kid" to reappear? Let's just hope that THIS was the aberration... and the new "real kid" is the pleasant one. </p>
<p>HiMom... We were on Oahu, but really only the touristy stuff, yes, including Don Ho. I remember that I loved Maui, though. Especially the sunrise over the volcano. I have a framed photo of that in my kitchen right now. It was amazing. Are you native Hawaiian? or chose to settle there? </p>
<p>You're lucky USC is so flexible. I'm not sure what GW does, they must have some provisions, because they have so many international students. Even only being 4 hours away, this was S's first weekend home. After this we'll see him a lot... Winter break, then in Feb we're meeting in Florida for a long weekend, Spring break in March... then just a week later meeting in Mass. for my niece's Bat Mitzvah. Then we probably won't see him till the end of the semester. Which by then will probably be fine with everyone.</p>
<p>Ok, everyone, enjoy thanksgiving. Time to Baste!</p>
<p>Team WildChild Family ran the local Thanksgiving 5K. A fun time was had by all, except WildChild, running his first race since his knee injury 16 months ago, wound up in the ambulance post-finish line. Despite his recent bronchitis and the cold, dry weather here, he not only did not USE his asthma inhaler, he didn't even bring it from PA! The ambulance paramedics were bored, and didn't mind at all giving him a breathing treatment. Despite all that, seeing him run again was a joy, even though he went from top 10 to the ambulance over the span of the last mile. His only comment was, "I hope I never again get beaten by someone with an IPOD." D and I had successful finishes while H, complete with post-surgery catheter bag, held sweatshirts at the finish line.
It is a gorgeous day in Tennessee and I am so grateful to have the kids (and D's boyfriend) home.</p>