Our freshmen!

Our dear family and friends,

Lauren is all moved into her dorm at ASU - with all the other freshmen in the Herberger Institute of Design and the Arts. Her roommate (Roxie) and a friend walked around the floor today and declared that they have the cleanest room on the floor. It's likely to stay that way, too!

She went to her first class today - drawing studio. What a great way to start her college career. She thinks she will really like the instructor and the class. There are only about 19 people in her class. Tomorrow she has her English and math classes. Next week she'll start her color studio class and one other mini-class that ASU requires of all incoming students.

Move in was all it should be in August in Phoenix - miserably hot and humid all day with a giant thunderstorm that night. Her room is situated in the boy's end of the floor, and that could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you look at it. The floor assistant and the two peer mentors have their rooms right around her so she feels pretty protected from wild animals. We're all adjusting to life without each other but I'm so proud of how well she's taking on all the challenges so far. We'll have some pictures soon.

Our other freshman, Mr. Gunner, started high school at Veritas two weeks ago. We were a little concerned because four of his six teachers were new to Veritas. I met them all at the Dessert Social before school actually started and was pretty impressed. His classes are geometry, Latin III, humane letters (American history and literature), biology, poetry and choral music.

His choral instructor is the same one that took Lauren's choir to New York last spring. She was out all last week for family reasons, so the first day she taught his class was this Tuesday. She had them all singing right away. After a bit, she split the class in two and had only one half sing. Then cut it down to just two rows. Then she pointed her finger at Gunner and said, "It's you, you're the one with the deep voice. I knew it. At least you're in tune." He said he blushed all the way behind his ears. (She's very pretty and Lauren says that all the boys fall in love with her.) Today, she asked him to try to sing a little higher. Maybe there's such a thing as too low?

Chris has moved everything into the shipping containers and is now living sparsely with his two duffle bags (mostly heavy gear) and a backpack. We all know what this means...he really is coming home soon!! We'll keep you posted.

Love you all,

Linda Sophia