Boy, that cape sure looks familiar ...

The front page of The Flat Hat, William and Mary's school newspaper, features a big picture of the Thomas Jefferson statue that has been transformed into the Headless Horseman. The caption reads "The statue of Thomas Jefferson was dressed in full form for Halloween by unknown students."

Huh. I wonder who could have done that.

W&M team golfs at Sunset Beach!

The Flat Hat: Men's Golf: W&M sets school record for 54-holes at Sea Trail

We're going to have to get CollegeGirl interested in the golf team! William and Mary participated this past weekend in the Sea Trail Intercollegiate which is just across the bridge from her grandparents' beach house. The Tribe placed fourth out of 19 teams.

CollegeGirl Update: Dining with polMom in Richmond!

While the boys and I were out camping, CollegeGirl paid a surprise visit to Richmond!

Her way-cool Saturday history class had traveled up to historic Saint Mary's City, Maryland which was the site of the fourth permanent settlement in British North America as well Maryland's first capital. It has a living history center with costumed interpreters similar to Colonial Williamsburg.

After spending the day attending court, being put in the stockade, learning about tobacco farming, and climbing aboard the replica square-rigged ship Maryland Dove, the class headed back to Williamsburg and decided to stop in Richmond for dinner at Five Guys Burgers and Fries. In an act of daughterly devotion that earned many, many brownie points, she phoned her mother at home to ask if she would like to join them. polMom was so excited that she called us out at camp to let us know she was going to see her.

Her visit was brief but she did fill in some of the holes that her Facebook account didn't provide. She's still has major love for William & Mary, enjoys her classes, and is apparently still doing well. She didn't miss a beat from high school and is still quite the social butterfly, participating in lots of clubs and activities ... some of them of questionable legality. She's very proud of completing the traditional Triathlon, a set of three tasks to be completed by each student prior to graduation. I won't post the tasks here but feel free to check out this Wikipedia article on W&M traditions and see what you think of our saintly daughter.

She hangs out a lot with her fellow Dinwiddie Hall dorm residents in which have really seemed to bond into a great social and support unit. Dinwiddie is the smallest of the freshman dorms and is also the furthest away from the academic campus tucked back in the woods by Lake Matoaka. With only 44 students in the dorm, the setting is almost familial and the residents do a lot of activities together, recently forming the Flying Lemurs intramural team.

Apparently, the local WaWa on Richmond Road is something akin to a religious site and has even prompted the creation of a "Cult of the WaWa" group on Facebook. CollegeGirl and her hoard wait until the wee hours of the morning and creep across campus in the dark of night on their pilgrimage for late-night (actually early morning) snacks. If you're thinking of sending something to her, one of these would be a welcome gift.

Apparently there was blackout last night in Williamsburg which triggered a crisis amongst the many Wawa fanatics. CollegeGirl posted this at 1:08am this morning:

Was anyone else part of the 50 or so people waiting in front of WaWa after the blackout? Wawa closed?? I about died...

Hopefully we'll hear more from her in the days ahead but were very grateful for even the brief time she was able to spend with her mom.

Not Just an American Shrine

There's another way to keep up with CollegeGirl. She's taking a very cool history class on Saturdays that focuses on the history of the Tidewater area during the colonial and revolutionary periods ... pretty much from the founding of Jamestown in 1607 to the death of Thomas Jefferson in 1826. In return for giving up the bulk of her day on Saturdays, the classes are conducted as field trips to various sites around the Tidewater area.

Part of the class is writing a journal and they're available for viewing online. You can read CollegeGirl's journal by clicking here. For those technically savvy family members, you can also subscribe to her journal entries via the RSS feed icon on the upper right-hand section of the webpage.

Her first entry is entitled "Not Just an American Shrine" and provides proof that she's actually attending class, enjoying the experience, and can still write very well.

Enjoy!

CollegeGirl moves in at W&M

Moving in
Originally uploaded by stepol

Well, we're officially college parents now. On Friday we helped to move CollegeGirl into her dorm at William & Mary. Taking two cars was definitely the way to go as we only had to navigate the one car with all the gear up to the dorm. That was a trick in itself as we had to thwart the evil roadblocking antics of the guy we now call MeanOldPoliceDude who tried to get us to unload our stuff at the furthest point from the dorm. After he moved on, we just loaded the car back up and drove right down to the dorm. So fie on you MeanOldPoliceDude!

I have to say that the dorm rooms in the Botetourt complex seem a bit small. Fortunately, mom and daughter had meticulously planned and had six different floor plans to choose from. When her roommate arrived they chose a plan and we quickly unbunked the beds and rearranged the room. The plans ended up getting shared up and down the hall as others arranged their rooms. We even had other moms and daughters coming in to check out the ultra-efficient closet organization.

We hung around until just after 1pm when CG had to go to her hall meeting. We passed on the President's welcome ceremony in order to turn in forms at Student Health and pay yet another fee at Blow Hall. We then took the boys to Pirece's Pit Barbeque for a great lunch. Afterwards, we decided it would be nice to pick up some drinks and snacks for CG so we headed to Williamsburg's only Ukrops. In the same shopping center was a Rue 21 store which is one of CG's favorites so polMom ran in and bought her a shirt with owl prints.

We hoped we could sneak back in to the dorm and drop the stuff off. The dorm was unlocked so we quietly went up the stairs and met CG at the top of the landing. You could see the "I thought you people were gone" look in her eyes but we explained we came bearing gifts and she grudgingly went back and let us into her room. We quickly dropped the stuff off and skedaddled back to Richmond.

Everyone asks if it was an emotional scene or hard to let her go but we've become so used to her being gone so much (teaching at Cub Camp, week-long kayaking trips, THIMUN, etc.) that it really hasn't sunk in yet. During the summer we saw her for brief periods about once a week so I'm sure we'll start missing those moments in the weeks ahead. Hopefully she'll manage to find a spare moment or two during the week to drop us an email or phone call ... or blog.