Aggieland

Last week we took our first vacation as a family of four. We went to College Station, home of the Aggies and my old stomping ground. It is actually a stretch to call it a vacation as it was actually a business trip for Sam, but since I love to travel and am not doing that much these days, I will call it a vacation. We have several friends who live there so it was fun to try to see some of them.
We drove down on Wednesday. Caroline slept the whole way and Katherine watched DVD's most of the way. I dropped Sam off on Campus for his meeting and went to meet a friend at a park. We were later getting into town than I had hoped so she was leaving the park to go eat dinner and head to church with her family. We had dinner at Melissa and Ray's house. It was so nice to catch up with them as we had not seen them since they moved down there in February. On Thursday Sam had to be on campus at 8:15 to start interviewing students at 8:30. I took the girls on a walk around campus. The first stop was at the MSC bookstore where I bought Katherine an A&M shirt. Caroline was hungry so we stopped at the flag room in the student center so I could nurse her. I am sure that the students don't see a nursing mother and a toddler every day but I don't think a single one of them caught on to what I was doing. While I was nursing Caroline, Katherine enjoyed the cow chair. She thought it was soft.
We then walked around the main part of campus, the part that still has all the old buildings and large trees, the part of the campus that was there when my grandfather went to A&M.
I felt quite old and out of place walking around a college campus with a huge double stroller, a 2 year old and a baby. I am somehow convinced that it has not been that long and I am still exactly like I was in college. Then I realize that I graduated 13 years ago and that the freshmen were only 1 when I left for college.

Katherine in front of the Sul Ross statue

One key difference that both Sam and I noticed is that when we went to school cell phones were huge. They were either connected to your car or they were like a brick. Now, every student had a cell phone and was either talking or texting as they walked to class or waited for the bus. They all have laptops and the campus has wifi. This generation is connected. Yet are they? It seemed that though they were connected to technology they appeared to be isolated from people.

At A&M one of the many traditions was "HOWDY". You were supposed to say "Howdy" to people when you passed them. Now obviously you are not going to greet every single person that you passed while walking to class but it was a very friendly campus and you would for sure say "Howdy" to anyone you thought was a visitor. With the stroller and kids I was most likely a visitor yet only one student greeted me in the 90 minutes we were on campus and that student said "Hi", not "Howdy".

You place money (and apparently now candy) on Sul Ross' for luck with a test.

Under the Century Oak

We left campus and headed to downtown Bryan where we started off at the library for story time. Then we walked through the restored downtown for lunch. This was the first time I went out to eat with both girls by myself. When I got to the restaurant I was the only person there and within 10 minutes the place was packed. I was so nervous that I would have a disaster but both girls did very well.

After lunch we went to the Children's Museum. It was perfect for Katherine and she had a lot of fun with all of the interactive exhibits.