Merit Weekend at UK

Lexi, Alyssa and I drove to Stanford on Thursday evening and spent the night in my sister Pauline's townhouse there. Of course, before we left, I drove 123 miles, going to Metropolis to pick up the three little ones from school and delivering Brady to his grandparents in Metropolis and Lily and Calla to their Grammy Carmen near Pryorsburg KY, then returning to Metropolis. When Lexi was home from school and Alyssa from work, we set out for central KY. I rode for that 240 miles.

Friday we drove from Stanford to Lexington, to the UK campus. It was a busy day, especially for Lexi. She had to take a couple of placement tests, while Alyssa and I attended some information sessions to find out more about UK. Alyssa also talked to someone in the finance (or something) office about the money, and Lexi had a meeting about band. At the end of the afternoon, we visited the dorm Lexi will be living in. (I didn't take the tour.) It is a dorm that will have mainly people in the Fine Arts majors - she may be the only one from Arts & Science (She plans to major in Psychology.) She was impressed by the practice rooms and art studios. She will be in the marching band and the pep band that plays at home ball games, so the practice rooms might be useful for her. It was about 10 pm when we got back to Stanford.

On Saturday, we went back to UK. Lexi had more small-group meetings and met with her adviser to set up her schedule for the fall semester. Alyssa and I were in more information meetings. At the end, we were told that if we hear of more orientations during the summer, ignore them, they are for the 'regular' kids. These three weekends in March were for the 'cream of the crop.' The average high school GPA of this group was 4.1 and their average SAT score was over 1300. Then after our free lunch in the Champions dining room [sort of like a food court in a mall, except you pay one price (usually about $10) and eat as much as you want from the various vendors], there were a bunch of tables set up in the ballroom with information about campus organizations, services, etc. I finally got home about 9:30 pm.

Tiring couple of days, but I'm so glad I went with them. I had thought I'd be able to show Lexi where I lived at her age, but we left too early and got back too late to see anything. I'll have to visit her some weekend this fall and take her to see Stanford and Berea (where I went to college).

Sunday afternoon, Carmen brought Lily and Calla to me to spend their Spring Break here. We're doing nothing today, but tomorrow we will go to Mayfield to visit the Ice House (Art Guild) and the library, and to do some grocery shopping. I'm not sure what we'll do after that.