12/1/08 We Are.....!!!

It was the day before Thanksgiving and we’re packing up the car to go to Philly to my SIL/In-laws. We’re trying to get out the door by lunchtime because we know how bad the PA Turnpike gets this day. Side note: You pay a toll to take your life into your (white knuckled) hands to tailgate at 65 mph; leave more then two car-lengths and someone darts in front of you (no turn signal, no smile, no wave…Happy Holidays to you too!), causing you to slam on the brakes and wonder if the car tailgating you will soon be in your backseat! Back to the story…I finally got my three teens (DD is now 21 actually) out of bed and packing up their final items around 10am (this is early for some of them…teens!). My middle one (DS-18) comes up from the basement beaming. PAUSE right there! This alone is a holiday miracle…he’s going through that moody-teen-ask-your-teenager-now-while-they-still-know-everything phase…so moments of “beaming” are a rare commodity! He announces “I got accepted into the Engineering school at Penn State main campus!!! Whoo-Hoo!!”(insert us jumping up and down here). Those of you that know PSU, know what a feat it is to get accepted to main campus your Freshman year (most go to a satellite their first 2 years). He’s a very smart kid (National Honor Society), but isn’t the best test taker (psyches himself out). He took a course and studied for the SAT, 2 hours almost every day for months, and then took it several times. He thought he wanted to go to Ohio State “OH”… “IO”!!! (DH and my alma-mater), but he missed the out-of-state scholarship by a mere 10 points on the SAT, so it was just too expensive to go there…He was crushed,but I kept telling him things happen for a reason. Since then we’ve been waiting for the acceptance letters online everyday, so this was welcome news indeed! He is totally thrilled (and we are too! He deserves this after all that hard work!...dilemma...who will we root for at the PSU-OSU game next year?)! One of his best friends that he played on the soccer team and ref’d with got accepted as well (also engineering) so they’re making plans to room together. My niece is a junior there now, so she was thrilled when we got to her home for Thanksgiving and he told her. The chant around our house now is… “WE ARE” … “PENN STATE”!!!