Wolf Lake -back to school

A quick entry--the house seems very empty today --empty of my teenager but not of his disarded possessions as clothing is piled high and has to be given away to thrift shop or stored for Hank...Andrew is safely at R.I.T. engineering school and beginning a new chapter in his life. He didn't seem to miss me at all when i said goodbye to him yesterday at 3 p.m. and drove home --but I miss him terribly. I go into his room, expecting to see him sleeping with his feet hanging out of the comforter!! On Sunday, after a nice afternoon and night with my family at my brother's house, Trip drove to R.I.T with the Toyota packed with andrew's clothing and computer equipment (from my brother's lake house --see photos of the family!) --The first thing that I told my brother when we got to his lake house on sat. afternoon was that Myriam had changed the Celebrate life 1/2 marathon so that Don, Frank, Rob, Kate and I could run it (it always conflicted with the 25K and the 50K)--so he asked when it was and will try to be around for it. The Celebrate Life 1/2 marathon goes right by my brother's lake house! That morning, Frank, Rob, Don and I had all run the Westport summer series and I had bags of Cliff Shots in my car (they were handing them out a the race)---these organic gummy bears were a huge hit among the kids, and Todd took some packets for hiking...
So onto R.I.T. -I met andrew and unloaded a car stuffed with assorted boxes and room items (such as laundry hampers and file cabinets), class schedules, etc. I didn't see Trip as he dropped off the stuff and turned around to go home (we left the 2 boys at the lake house with mom and dad and the cousins til 6 p.m. --they would much rather do that then be in the car for 7-plus hours). I checked into super 8,got to Andrew's new dorm, and we went to the orientation fair ---we signed him up for a bank account, and looked at all the booths (fraternities, sports)-then we went to the brand new huge Barnes and Noble bookstore --right now in fact have to e-mail andrew about textbooks!! --to get his books (which cost an average of $100 each). We did not buy the Calculus book as it was $240!! Then we went to an on-campus cafe and he had a dorm meeting and didn't want to see me anymore so I went back to the motel -yesterday R.I.T. had a wonderful orientation assembly where all the freshman came in RIT t-shirts and sat together in their respective academic areas --andrew had an engineering school meeting and I went to the bookstore and then met up with his roommate and roommate's mother. We managed to do some shopping and then I was off --the new students have an entire week of orientation....so one less child now, but still many loose ends to tie up!! . For whatever reason, andrew didn't want photos of him and I didn't get my camera out til all was over but the campus was a spectacular sea of orange and brown.
Hank started high school this a.m. --taking him to get a new backpack and cleats this afternoon, and it is not easy to get into the homework mode when it still is summer........