We’re devoting our summer to visiting colleges for our son who’s going to be a Senior this year. Eight colleges are on our agenda, all in surrounding states to where we live. Although he won’t be going until August, 2012 he could be applying to the schools that make the first cut as early as August, 2011 (only a few days away!). This is to take advantage of the early application period and maximize chances for being awarded merit or other scholarships. While the early application period is different for each school, the rough timeline is between August 1st and end of October of the year prior to entrance. That means before he actually starts his Senior year he could apply for college.

Many of the schools have what is called a rolling application process. This simply means first applications in are the first letters to go out with admittance information and scholarship information, although this information isn’t sent at the same time. Basically, if you wait too long, funds will be gone or as one college stated “The longer you delay, the more you pay”.

Our son has taken the ACT three times (although the first one didn’t count, he was in 8th grade taking it for a special summer camp). He did really well on each test, having never studied, but we all wanted him to take it one more time after he studied to see if he could raise his score a couple more points.  We had planned for him to take it over the summer so he would be ready to apply in August. Unfortunately we didn’t check the ACT schedule. My bad! It appears they don’t offer testing over the summer, and the next testing period isn’t until early September. While we will still have time for him to take the test one more time (with the writing portion that some of the colleges require) and submit the application once the results have been received still within the early application period, it will be close. Doesn’t leave much wiggle room.

One thing that stands out as we are going through this process is it really is never too early to start.  Juniors, start now!

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Several years ago I decided for Mothers Day I wanted to do a photo shoot for our family.  I would take the photos and since it was Mothers Day they ‘had’ to do what I asked.  This was such a huge success that I’ve been trying to do it each year since.  Unfortunately, the weather doesn’t always cooperate and it’s real easy for other things to get in the way so the family doesn’t have to trek all over town to appease the mom in the weekends that follow.  But this year, I was successful in getting all the planets to align.  While we did have a few hiccups, such as the dog almost dying, it all ended good; no fatalities and lots of good shots.  Here are some of my favorites!

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We traveled to Branson, MO for a little R&R over the Labor Day weekend.  It had been years since we (suit and I) had been there, and this was a first for our boys.  Although this trip had tentatively been planned for several month we hadn’t made any decisions about what we were going to do once we got there.  We wanted to wing it.  We had coordinated this trip so we could make a stop to see the newest addition to the family, little Baby Anna, our niece (who by the way is as sweet as could be!).  After snuggling with her for a few hours we made our way to Branson.  Since we were really only going to have one full day here we decided to get the most for our money and time we should go to Silver Dollar City for the day. 

I was a little concerned, wondering if the boys were too old for this park and wondering if they had enough to keep us entertained for the day.  I’m happy to say that Silver Dollar City didn’t disappoint.  We started the day by going thru Marvel Cave.  It was very cool, both literally and figuratively.  And, yes there were bats.  We had to travel thru a couple of pretty tight spots and in one section the ceiling was pretty low.  Hanging from this low ceiling was a tiny little bat.  Had I not seen him I definetly could have hit him with my head.  What surprised me was he actually kind of cute!   Tiny little thing, tiny little eyes.  When we got done with the cave we toured the rest of the park.  We partaked in eating lots of different foods and sampling lot of candy.  Salt water taffy is now a new fav of our families. 

That evening we went out to dinner and ran into one of my college roommates who I hadn’t seen for 18 years.  Turned out her husband is a facebook friend of one of my friends.  Such a small world! 

Unfortunately I only have one photo that covers this weekend.  We went low tech thanks to my forgetting our camera and our unit not having internet connection.  I have to say it was a nice relief. 

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