When we hugged Ella goodbye in August and said, "See you at the end of October", that felt sooo far away! I'm thankful the months flew by with everyone thriving and loving life. There was no part of our Family Weekend with Ella at college that wasn't awesome. Seeing our girl, meeting her people, and being immersed in her world for a few days filled our hearts with overflowing happiness. Her college mixed in some special Family Weekend activities and we were intentional about getting Ella off-campus for some fun meals and outings. And the whole weekend was even perfectly timed with our own Friday off school!
We timed our travels perfectly to meet Ella right as she emerged from a class at noon. We were excited to take her out for lunch. I loved watching these sisters run into each others' arms at first sight of each other. Ella does not hate the Caf food, but didn't complain about a break from it for the weekend. First non-Caf meal was at a fun little Pho restaurant.
Ella's Friday schedule includes a 3 hour afternoon chemistry lab, so after lunch we dropped her back off and headed out to tour a nearby college in SoCal. This is the same school Ella looked at last year and probably would have also done very well at. We wanted Delia to see it also. Though, she was impressed with its aesthetic and fun features, Delia did not get that gut feeling that this is where she's being called. Getting a front row seat to see Ella thrive at her school has made a big impact on Delia and it's likely both girls will end up at the same place.
Back to Ella's college, where we met her for a delicious picnic dinner on the lawn, followed by the annual fall talent show which was tons of goofy fun! We enjoyed spreading our blanket by Ella's good friend, and twin!, Ava, and her family and getting to know them a bit. After the talent show, Ella invited us to her Friday night Swing Dance Club, where she was recently elected a leader of! So fun to catch some of the dancing under the patio lights and meet some of the friends Ella has met in this club. Delia learned some new moves.
Saturday morning we 3 girls got into the awesome mother/daughter self defense class taught by the charismatic chief of police at the school. It's a strange thing to have fun with, but it was an experience I'm glad to have shared with the girls! When asked who wanted to actually try their punches and kicks on a real dude (wearing a super padded outfit), Ella volunteered and suited up for battle! She did great!
We got free shirts and pepper spray for attending the class! But, the coolest thing was after learning the facts and moves and practicing, the class ended with the chief of police praying protection over each of us women and asking the Lord to ensure we'd never have to use what we learned.
The afternoon was ours and Ella said what she'd most like would be an off-campus outing. She and all her friends are car-less and mostly bound to campus, so she was anxious to explore. I found the perfect museum for us-- the California Science Center! Free to the pubic and located on the USC campus right in the middle of all the 1984 LA Olympics structures, it was a neat part of the city that was new to us. This museum is famous for housing the Endeavor Space Shuttle. It has a giant NASA exhibit that we all found interesting.
It wasn't all space, though. This museum covered just about every aspect of science in a cool hands-on way. Between Delia's AP Environmental Science class and Ella's Bio and Chem classes this semester, we frequently heard, "I'm learning about this right now!" We walked through a small aquarium, saw each stage of baby development in the womb, visited the desert, arctic, and deep sea, and learned about different animal mating rituals to name just a few of the random sciences we explored.
The girls tried using a giant lever to lift a pickup truck.
We wandered through beautiful gardens.
And we cracked ourselves up in the "Casa de Fuego" where we were supposed to learn about fire safety, but decided to recreate memes instead.
We swung back by school to pick up a few of Ella's friends for dinner at a cozy local Italian restaurant. What's better than a big plate of homecooked pasta when you've been eating in the school cafeteria for months? These are 2 of Ella's closest friends who did not have their own families in town for this night of Family Weekend, Tori and Ava. Bethany and Jasmine are her other 2 besties, but they weren't able to join us. We loved getting to know these sweet funny girls. Both are psychology majors, something Delia is considering, so it was encouraging for her to hear their passion and plans for the future too.
After dinner we asked if we could take the girls anywhere special, any shopping or outings they were needing or craving. Tori sweetly asked if we could just get desert together, so our easy conversation and laughter continued over froyo. The girls then invited us back to the dorm to join them in Jackbox games! We felt so cool and included! ;)
While Dave and I stayed in a nearby hotel, Delia stayed in the dorm with Ella and her friends. She didn't sleep great, but loved the taste of college life and is all revved up about how she's gonna decorate her own dorm in a few years! Ella's been bouncing between 3 churches. One has amazing warm fellowship; one has amazing worship and does communion every Sunday, which she loves; and one has amazing preaching. We went to the amazing preaching church and then out for after-church pancakes and omelets at a nearby diner where we talked about how hard it is to find the 3 things you're looking for in 3 different churches. ;)
Hugging Ella goodbye at the end of this weekend was so much easier! There were no tears. We will see her again in a few weeks for Thanksgiving, but the ease for me was in seeing how well she's fitting into her new life.
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