Today was the first of a 2 day Grand Parent University here. We did that back in 2013 and are doing it again this year with the oldest GS. He likes it, gets to see some things about university courses of study that might be of interest and we…. get to spend some money on him that is not for a toy or ? throw out gift…
It wasn’t an early start… but still out and off to breakfast – his choice… Whataburger for the pancakes… then to check in before the start… a lot of the folks came in yesterday and checked in early … they had a trip to the museum and a swim party… GS1 couldn’t get here that early so we opted for the actual start…
We were a bit early… so … thumb exercises…
They had the therapy dogs in the area before the start… seems this student was out late last night? the therapy worked… after petting the dog… he fell asleep on the stage… and was truly asleep…
After the opening few speeches we got to go have lunch at one of the lunch rooms… same one I went to about 40 some y ears ago… when I lived in Parker Hall my Freshman year but it sure didn’t look like this… although I think they serve the same old food?
We got to do Plants and People this year… and here we arrived at the Botanic Garden for a little lesson and garden walk… we were real lucky… it wasn’t raining, it wasn’t hot, (although the humidity was horrible) and we got to do it out side…
I didn’t know there were “soap” trees but the berries here when rubbed will act just like soap…
Part of the crew touching the cactus with out spines…
flowers every where and they were to pick 6 and save so they could make a book marker by pounding them to juice…
Back in the class room and he was eyeing the camera… literally…
This is the position his mouth was in much of the afternoon… Here we are starting to build a flower and learn all the parts…
Putting more pieces on his flower…
I made one too… … this was the final product of our creation…
We then got our bus ride back to the dorms and rested up a bit then off to have the group picture taken…
We were on the balcony of the Union, waiting here… seems a lot of people can’t or didn’t read their schedule… “picture at 6:20pm… well it was well after 6:30 when they took some pictures and we still think there were people coming … after the picture back to the Alumni center for a “tailgate” … I wouldn’t call it a tailgate as much as buffet for pizza and salad… it was a decent enough meal but I think of tailgate as someone grilling stuff outside with lots of great smells, and things like that… guess that is hared to do for 250 plus… on this scale… It was quit full and the lines long and the wait… pretty bad… but we ate, it was ok, and the pep rally after was ok as well…they brought in some of the summer working athletes…
He got his shirt signed by Pistol Pete… so that was ok… I remember several years ago he didn’t even want to get close to the guy shooting the gun… ha! but tonight there were not shots… it was a bit better crowd and no need for shooting…
After dinner we came home… our beds here are a bit better than the ones in the dorms… and quieter…
WD0AJG