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Dorm Room Move-in Day

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Our family reached a huge milestone a few weeks ago. We moved our oldest daughter into her freshman dorm room at college!

If you’ve been following my blog posts for awhile, you might know that I grew up in Riverside, California, then raised my own children in Dallas, Texas. Our family has taken frequent trips to California to visit my relatives. Thus, I wasn’t surprised when my daughter decided to apply to California schools. California’s a gorgeous state. But also, she was ready to spread her wings and take on a big, far-away adventure.

She chose to attend the honor college at San Diego State University, so His Highness and I flew to San Diego to help her move into her dorm.

Here we are in the morning, feeling peppier than we’d feel later, after carting numerous loads up three flights of stairs.
The car was a wee bit packed. We ordered many of the things she needed for her dorm room online and shipped them to San Diego. The rest we packed into the six pieces of luggage we brought with us on the plane. Five of those, and every carry-on, were stuffed with her belongings.
One of many trips from the car to her room.
This is the line of parents and kids waiting for the elevator! (We were too impatient to wait in this line every time. Which is why we most often carried items up the stairs.)
With her roommate. In true 2019 style, they found each other online and communicated over the summer mostly via text and social media.
Once we finished, here’s what my daughter’s side of the room looked like.
Her roommate’s side of the room.
The next day, we went to a new student and family convocation service.
Here she is at the convocation, standing alongside the other students studying Health and Human Services. She chose to major in kinesiology, with an eye toward potentially enrolling in medical school one day.
His Highness and I spent our last evening in San Diego visiting the beach.
We were treated to this amazing sunset while eating dinner.

Numerous friends have reached out to ask me how I’m doing since I returned home to Dallas. Truthfully, I’m doing well. I’m relieved that she’s squared away and situated. I’m excited for her. I’m hopeful about her future. We always knew she’d go one day… and now she has. Because of that, it feels like she’s exactly where she ought to be in this season.

What memories from your freshman year (or your child’s freshman year) stick out most in your memory?

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Becky Wade

Author at Bethany House
Becky makes her home in Dallas, Texas with her husband and three children. She absolutely loves writing funny, heartwarming, and inspirational contemporary Christian romance.
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Comments

  1. I commuted for my freshman and sophomore years. Freshman year, I managed (not once but twice) to lock my keys in my car which meant someone had to drive a half hour (one way) to bring me a spare key. After the second time, my dad took a piece of string, tied my car key on it, and hung it around my neck.

  2. Great pictures! Wishing your daughter all the best. She looks so happy. Our daughter went to college locally, but then moved from Virginia to California a year after graduating because that is where she got the first job opportunity in her field – human resources. She was first in San Diego and then moved to southern Orange County, now is near Riverside. We definitely miss her, but love the chance to visit and get to know California.

    My freshman year experience is quite unusual. I went to Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, VA. That November was when President Kennedy was assassinated. My roommates and I took the train to DC and watched the procession to the Capitol. We stood in line to walk by his casket. Very emotional!

      • Yes, I can’t believe I did that now. I had just turned 18 and was an introvert, but this was such a tragedy, and we felt compelled to be there.

  3. What a wonderful time for the three of you, Becky! She’s going to do so well. I remember making the opposite move my freshman year – leaving California to come to school in Texas. Pre-internet, pre-cell-phone, I had never even set foot on ACU’s campus before I arrived to move in. I had no idea who my roommate would be. But I was determined to make friends and find my niche, and God saw me through. I know he’ll do the same for your kiddo.

    I’ve been blessed having my college-aged kids still in the same town. They might not live at home, but I get to see them frequently, so staying in touch is easy. But my oldest is now starting to apply to grad schools, and none of them are close by. My apron strings are getting thinner and thinner, but like you, I’m excited to see what the Lord has in store for these young adults. 🙂

    • “I remember making the opposite move my freshman year – leaving California to come to school in Texas. Pre-internet, pre-cell-phone” Yes! Same here. Like you and me, she was determined to travel far, make friends, and find her niche. I’m praying that it will work out as well for her as it did for us. 🙂

  4. My son went to school in California after growing up in Indiana. When we visited this school his junior year he said “this is it”, and it was! We also ordered and shipped things directly to the school. On move in day he wore a particular tee shirt about some kind of computer program, and before I knew it there were a bunch of kids in his room all talking in some technical language that I couldn’t begin to comprehend. That’s when I knew he was where he needed to be, and that gave me peace! He found a job in California after he graduated, and he is still is where he is supposed to be. I am happy to visit!

  5. My freshman year I went to a college a couple of states away from where my family was living. Since I am the youngest child in my family, my parents were then empty nesters. Something that meant a lot to me was that my father wrote me the only letter he ever wrote me. In it he expressed that they really missed me and that mother had even shed tears over my absence. It was an encouraging letter and something I treasured.

  6. Congrats on the first college move-in! When they are far away it really helps when you have peace that they are right in the place God wants them to be. I loved the college years with my kids–watching them spread their wings but still having them home every now and again. Enjoy these years!

  7. AND … Here it starts! Her college years will fly by even faster than those high school years. One college drop-off memory of ours is from 2010, when my husband dropped off our oldest at Tulane University in New Orleans. No room for me in the car, so I stayed home with our daughter, who was starting high school. New Orleans is extraordinarily sticky in August and my boys worked up a serious sweat moving in. So imagine my “ewww!”when after two days travel back to Illinois, I opened my husband’s duffel to find every t-shirt, every pair of shorts, every piece of underwear still soaked through!Blessings to your daughter in her college career.

  8. Thanks for posting! I was born & raised overseas, graduated from high school from the American school overseas. My parents were missionaries. My mom came with me to move into my new “home”, college in the States. My older brother attended the same school. What a cultural shock!! Yet, I truly enjoyed my college years. My freshman year, my parents were overseas so my brother and I didn’t “go home” for any of the holidays. Phone calls were too expensive! This was 1972. God is good all the time. New experience but a good one!

    • Donna, I attended Frankfurt International School in Germany for 5th-8th grade. Even after just 4 years overseas, it was a bit of a cultural shock for me to return to the states to attend high school. I was out of step with everything that was then considered “cool” in the USA. It took me awhile to find friends!

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