And then they grow up... & off to college

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." - JRR Tolkien, the Fellowship of the Ring

Babies grow up so darn fast. I put together these random silly photos when my girl went away to college and I was looking through all the photos from over the years, and these ones just made me smile. The ridiculous onesie pajama outfit I was wearing while pregnant in my apartment in Pasadena, and the way baby Savannah is smiling so sweetly at her mama and then sweet 5 or so year old Savannah in the car... boy those were wonderful (and sometimes tough) times but so beautiful! I cant believe my girl is all grown up.

This is Savannah's high school graduation card. She made it herself! She is standing in front of a building on the UT-Dallas campus called The Mermaid building (Engineering Research Lab). It is really cool looking! She is on a full-ride 4-year scholarship as a National Merit Scholar at UT-Dallas in neuroscience.

I stole this photo from Savi's Instagram because I thought it was so cool! She posted this the day before leaving for college - it is an awesome quote from the Fellowship of the Ring. "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to."

Earlier this summer I took a trip to Dallas to visit my mom, and we stopped by UT-Dallas where Savannah is going. I had not been to the campus so it was cool to see it!

My mom and I on the UT-D campus with California poppies in the background (& one behind my ear...).

A cool design element outside the Student Center building. Underneath it is a huge fan that students can cool off under.

Back in Houston... The last night I saw Savannah before she went off to college, we went to The Cheesecake Factory in The Woodlands. It brought back some fun memories of going to the one in San Fran on top of this tall building with Paige and her family. Fun times!

Sam and Savi goofing around at dinner.

Sam and Savannah at the Cheesecake Factory. What a couple of gorgeous kids, if I don't say so myself! :) So proud of these two!

Savannah and I :)

So on Memorial day weekend I went to visit Savi at college after her first week there. I got to see her dorm room, meet one of her roommates, and hang out for the day. Yay! This is a collage on Savannah's dorm wall I thought was cool, especially the photos on the right wit the orange and yellow background. They were taken at the Houston Center for Photography that we visited last year, and I took the photo of Savi looking at her phone against the backdrop of the exhibit sign that says something about Teenagers and then "A Portrait of Identity and Expression" which is funny because of the pic of both her and Sam doing their teenage thing -- Sam hiding his face and Savi on the phone. She took the one of Sam and I took the one of her. I love that she put them together and framed them on her wall!

"Your mom" is a popular teenage expression, of course, and I love that she put this pic on her wall too! It was taken on our trip to California a couple years back and Sam drew Your Mom on the sand and she took this photo of Sam and I with the sand scribble. I'd never seen it before.  I have some pics of Savi in her dorm room and with her roommate but I won't them for her privacy!

Savannah took this pic of me in the car on the way to the Dallas World Aquarium.

A pigmy marmoset at the Aquarium. I have to say, this is the best aquarium I have ever been to! They had so many animals and not just aquatic ones. I really enjoyed it, though it was crowded as all get out.

This is a kind of cool pic of a sawfish in one of those "tunnels" with sharks and other things.

Mom and I at the Aquarium in front of this cool Mayan (or something) backdrop.

After the day at the aquarium, we met up with my stepdad Skip at PF Chang's. This is mom and Skip - they arent smiling but they were having a good time!

Sam, Savannah and me poking my head into the picture!

The next day, I met up with my old friend from Texas A&M, Janie, who lived in the apartment building across the street from where I lived with Matt in College Station. We have been friends for a long time! I actually don't remember where we first met, but I do remember Matt & I gave her our hamster, Comfrey :) She came all the way from Ft. Worth to see me -- we met at the Mellow Mushroom pizza place (very good by the way, in fact probably the best pizza I have had in a decade!) and she told me that she's making a greater effort to see friends because - if I remember correctly -- a friend of hers from college passed away from cancer recently after she missed an opportunity to visit with her. It made her realize all the more that she wanted to stay in touch with friends from the past, because truly you never know when will be the last time you see them. She brought her adorable twin girls, who I'd never met before this trip!