Off to Choate

Yesterday, we dropped off Elizabeth at Choate Rosemary Hall for a two week intensive writing program and she couldn't have been more excited.  Choate has several summer programs of varying lengths (2, 4 and 5 weeks) for middle schoolers and high schoolers.  Elizabeth with be mixing and mingling with 604 other students from 43 other countries and 26 other states - it's quite amazing.*  The first few hours are definitely overwhelming, with registration, move in and set up (technology, picking up books at the bookstore, etc.) and in hindsight, I think that they might make it that way so that as a parent, it's a bit easier to say goodbye (we were completely exhausted).  I am having a difficult time wrapping my head around the fact that my 11 year is going to get up every morning on her own, get herself to the dining hall for three meals a day, go to class meet, with advisors, play sports (one individual sport, one dorm sport), go on field trips, write papers - you name it.  But this is what she has wanted for so long and we really hope that it is everything that she anticipated.

Two weeks of stuff. 

I don't think that she was even slightly nervous. 

Heading to registration. 

The flags of the 44 countries represented this summer. 

The flags of the 27 states represented. 

Lunch at Hill House (the dining hall) - which, from the outside, looks like one of the nicest buildings on campus, so imagine our surprise (well, not Lee, because he knows the routine a bit better than us) when we found out that it was the dining hall.  We walked inside and Lee and I said to the girls (almost simultaneously) "Welcome to Hogwarts."

Outside of her dorm.  Not having a/c at home certainly prepared her for two weeks of dorm living...no a/c at Choate either and several of the kids and parents were already complaining. 

This is Choate's 101st year having a summer program. 

In her dorm.  She was disappointed in the size of the room and the furnishings for about 10 seconds.  Then we started to set things up and the smile returned. 

Despite the large number of international students, her roommate is a girl from the Upper West Side who seems a lot like Elizabeth.  We hope that sharing a room with Emily helped prepare her a bit for having a roommate.

Elizabeth's instagram post last night - "Finally here!!"

* Truth be told, I was a bit intimidated by all of the people and the vehicles they were driving.  At one point, I texted my sister and told her that I felt like my parents.  My Honda Accord was definitely one of the least interesting vehicles we saw on Sunday - and that's not counting the people being driven all over campus by drivers (no limos, but plenty of black Suburbans and Escalades).  I don't consider myself frumpy either, but there were plenty of moms there there were incredibly stylish and very well put together....