A birthday party and a campus visit

As our time here is winding down, we’ve been checking things off from our “To-Do” list – doctor appointments, dentist appointments, and Casey had a spa day.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She looks like a new dog!

We’re still not sure of our destination when we leave here next week – we’ll spend several days in Kentucky, and then a week or so with Nicolas in Charleston.  He survived the torrential rain without any trouble, and it looks like our route will be clear to get there.  From there, we’ll stay in northern Florida for November and December, and then head further south after the holidays. 

Las weekend, we celebrated Bryce’s birthday with my family. 

 

My mom made his favorite dinner – ham – and I made a cake . . .

 and Jaxon brought bat cupcakes for the party.

 

Jaxon also thought that Bryce needed a birthday hat . . . and in case he didn’t have one, he brought his for Bryce to wear!

 

 

It was a fun day with the whole family – we had a good dinner, played some cards, and Tom got his “baby fix” with Graysen!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This weekend, we headed to the west side of the state for one more college visit – Grand Valley State University.

In addition to the undergraduate program that Bryce is looking at, GVSU also has a Physical Therapy doctoral program, and we wanted to check that out, too.

 

The Open House was very well attended, with hundreds of high school students and their parents.

We started with continental breakfast and a presentation by Admissions, followed by an information fair with the various colleges and departments.  We got some good information on both Athletic Training and Physical Therapy.

The morning ended with student-led tours.  It was a beautiful day for walking around campus, but pretty quiet for a Saturday – either all the students had gone home for the weekend, or they were still sleeping!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The campus is in a beautiful location west of Grand Rapids, and has a lot of open space around some very beautiful, brand-new buildings.

 

 

Almost 90% of students live on-campus, and there are multiple housing options for students to choose from – including traditional dorms, suite-style dorms, and apartments – and many of them are new. 

It almost feels like a huge apartment complex more than a college.  In comparison, there aren’t many classroom buildings.  Many of the colleges are building their academic buildings in downtown Grand Rapids.  So, the students live out on the main campus, but go to many of their classes downtown.

It was a pretty campus, but it just didn’t have the “college feel” that Bryce is looking for . . . and it just isn’t Michigan State!