The girls did remarkably well on the flight. Madeline basically nursed and slept the entire time. She only cried for a few moments. Kathleen wasn't quite as quiet or quite as still, but she was really good, all things considered. She sat in her carseat because even though we could technically take her onboard as a lap child, that would never work in reality. She'd last maybe five minutes on a lap! Five hours is just a long time to try to confine a toddler -- or to entertain one, for that matter. Still, we all survived the flight there. (And the flight back was even better, as we had an extra seat and a little more room for Kathleen to move around.)
The bad news about the trip was that we all got sick. Kathleen came down with a cold virus the weekend before we left. She had a horrible, hacking cough, a runny nose, and one night of a bad fever. She then shared it with her sister the day before we left. Daddy started showing symptoms the day we flew. I caught it a few days after we arrived in San Francisco. Yuck! Because of our contagious, snotty state, we didn't get to do nearly as much visiting with friends and family as we'd have liked. We did manage to visit Uncle Kevin and Aunt Marie's new flat in the City and watch football and eat fantastic pizza. And we even snuck out (sans children for almost 2 hours!) to meet Uncle Kevin, Aunt Marie, Uncle Craig, and Aunt Caroline for a drink at the Marin Brewing Company one evening. But otherwise, we mostly kept to ourselves, since we wouldn't have wished the misery of the colds on our worst enemies.
Cold or no, Kathleen made the most of staying with Nan and Grandpa. They gave her all her favorite foods, and made sure to have a dvd of her favorite television show, and surprised her with all sorts of little treats. You can tell that life at the O'Connors' is tough for her:
I know that Madeline loved being with her grandparents (and meeting her grandpa!), too.
While we were hanging out with family, we also managed to visit graduate schools -- namely Stanford and Cal Berkeley. Those are two of the schools on Jim's application list for PhD programs, and we thought a visit would be good for some face-to-face meetings with professors for Jim, and for the girls and I to get a feel for both places.
We loved Stanford's Spanish-style architecture, manicured lawns, and wide-open feel. And Kathleen particularly loved the fountain!
Stanford has an exception reputation and many distinguished scholars, which had made it a front-runner in the Golby grad school rankings. But Berkeley surprised us! I'd only really ever thought of it as crazy, liberal "Beserk-ly," which is what Grandpa O'Connor is fond of calling the university and its little city. And while it certainly doesn't have the grand scope of Stanford, we loved the architecture and found many gorgeous little nooks while we explored the campus. Plus, and perhaps most compellingly, Berkeley had amazingly helpful faculty. They absolutely went out of their way to meet with Jim -- one even spent several hours with him, talking about the program and Jim's research interests. We also learned that the university isn't nearly as crazy as the longtime residents of Berkeley. According to one source, the College Republicans are the largest student group on campus. Who'd have guessed that?
We haven't come to any decisions about grad school, which is probably wise, since Jim hasn't finished the applications, much less been accepted. But we're encouraged that we'll be happy wherever we wind up, and we're confident that God is preparing a place for us. Maybe it'll be in California. We'll see!
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