Leaving James at GCC

Hello, everyone! Sorry for the late update, but there's been a little drama here since I last wrote. I'll get to that later. But for now, the important stuff:

James seems to be settling into school nicely and is meeting people and making friends faster than I can learn their names. Here he is, caught unawares, hanging out with two friends in the Student Union:

And here he is, outside the Student Union, about to go out to dinner with his parents one more time before we go back to Alaska:

We decided to go to Eat'nPark for dinner, and we had a good time there. Much hilarity, most of it from James, naturally. Jim and I were having withdrawals already so we weren't quite our normal sparkly personalities, haha. Here's James with me, in my new Grove City College Mom sweatshirt (thank you, Jim):

And here he is with Jim:

Lamp hats! (Sorry, couldn't resist...)

I'm so glad I got to go on this trip to see where he's living now. The campus is beautiful and in the spring, when the flowers are blooming and the grass is lush, it's going to be breathtaking. Oh, and before I forget, here are some pics I took of the random architectural details that caught my eye. I love a building where things were put in just because they are beautiful.

This is the pulpit in the Harbison Chapel:

And this is the balcony (where James says it's easiest to get out quickly if you have to run across campus to your next class, which he does):

This is some tile work in the lobby of the chapel:

And when even the storm grates are pretty, you know careful thought and love went into the making of the place:

James's updates on Facebook (yes, we have to use Facebook because he's having trouble receiving emails on campus) indicate that he's having a good time. He's got a new blog going that you should check out, here at Pookie Must Be Heard!

Now, why didn't I update the blog earlier? Well, it took us almost exactly 24 hours to get home after leaving the hotel in Grove City, so we were pretty tired when we got home on Wednesday morning. We got a few hours of sleep before cleaning out the freezer - which had thawed while we were away and we lost nearly everything that had been in it. Stinky meat and drippy blood, gross. We needed to go pick up the three dogs at the kennel in Sterling, too. Tate had been moved to the indoor area because she seemed too cold, so she stayed nice and clean, but Belle and Moya needed baths. So there was that to do, too. Then Lysol out the freezer, go to town to get groceries to begin to replace what we'd lost, come home to cook up what meat we were able to salvage, all while trying to get our feet back under us from the trip and the weirdness of coming home without James.

On the bright side, though, the weather has been gorgeous. Frosty cold in the teens, but gorgeous. The sunshine is lovely and the snow is so sparkly it looks like Liberace should be wearing it.

Tomorrow there is a sled dog race in Kasilof, the Tustumena 200. Jim and I are planning to go see the start of it, and drive around looking at the ice sculptures being done in Kenai. Are we taking the dogs with us? Oh heck no. The last thing we need is for Moya to see other dogs running flat-out and figure out that's what she was bred to do. We'd never be able to walk her normally again... As if we could in the first place!