University of Puget Sound Parent's Weekend

It was Homecoming and Parent's Weekend at the University of Puget Sound. Layton gave us the go-ahead to come crash his campus for two days and even attend one of his classes!

The University had two days planned for the visiting parents beginning Friday morning and going through Saturday night. The activities included attending some of your student's classes to educational lectures and presentations to campus tours to sporting events and a family 5K run. Scott was excited and wanted to attend a lecture, every hour, attend every game and run together in the 5K race. I on the other hand was only excited about seeing Layton. Layton was only excited to see us. Truth be told, he was terrified of Scott showing up in his classroom and embarrassing him. His idea of a great parent's weekend was to have his parents come up and give him some entertainment (and food) off campus. He was good with anything as long as it was off campus. I think being on a small college campus with no car is starting to give him a little bit of cabin fever.

We arrived to school with plenty of time to make it to Layton's last class of the day. It was his Constitutional Controversies Class. Layton was very relieved to see that there were many parents there in addition to his dad.

After class we granted Layton's wish and took him off campus for the day. First stop was a Mexican Restaurant and then we decided to take Layton to the Car Museum there in Tacoma. This is definitely one of Scott's happy places. He has come here three times in the last year or so, so this time we decided it was worth buying a family membership.

We spent almost three hours in this museum! It is the largest car museum in all of the United States and Canada. This began as the private collection of Harold and Nancy LeMay. At its peak, the LeMay Collection numbered in excess of 3,000 vehicles and thousands of artifacts. The Collection is broadly American and spans the 20th Century. Harold and Nancy intuitively knew the power of the Collection through the experiences they shared with family and friends at car shows and swap meets across the nation. They also knew its power from the stories it elicited from all who spoke with them at their Annual Car Show and Open House which has drawn thousands of people to the LeMay homestead each August for more than a quarter century. Harold and Nancy knew that the power of their Collection would be lost if it, like the wonderful Harrah’s Collection, was ever dispersed individually or in small lots to numerous buyers. It became their dream to ensure their marvelous Collection never suffered the fate that befell Harrah’s. 

Layton decided this miniature racing track was awesome and now has the goal to have one of these in his future house. It was like the ultimate electric train set!

Then we found the race car simulator game. I knew after about 1.6 seconds of watching this that I wanted no part of it! It was definitely a crazy and bumpy ride and even Layton had to bail out before he finished all his laps cause he felt so car sick. Scott started out a little rough but got the hang of it pretty quickly and actually finished with some respectable times. He can thank all those hyper speed Tesla drives for that!

Then it was time to find a local barbershop. Even Layton agreed he needed a haircut and we wanted to capitalize on that so we found a barbershop that got good reviews and was nearby and everyone was happy with the results!

Our evening plans were to see a movie that hasn't even been released yet at a local film festival. None of us have even been to a film festival so it was a fun experience. The movie was called "Greener Grass". 

Our movie tickets doubled as a review ballot. After the movie they wanted us to tear the ticket at the spot that represented our enjoyment of the movie. I didn't turn mine in afterwards cause I needed some more time to process everything that went down in that movie!!!! None of us have ever seen a weirder movie than "Greener Grass". It was so bizarre that you can't help but love it. It took an upper class suburbia neighborhood into the philosophy of the "grass is always greener on the other side" to an extreme. Everyone wears braces (cause there is always a little room for improvement), and people do the weirdest things to please their friends (like giving your baby away cause someone mentioned they thought she was cute and loved her), and one woman actually picks up a soccer ball at her son's game, puts it under her dress and announces she is pregnant! And everyone believes it! And no one questions it when she gives birth a few weeks later to a soccer ball and carries it around in her baby carrier. You can see why I needed some more time to process this movie. 

After the movie, we dropped Layton off at his dorm. He had forgotten his key and the door was locked. He didn't seem worried at all. This isn't his first time doing this obviously. He called security to come let him in. While we were waiting, his roommate showed up as well...without a key! We said a quick good-bye since our plan was to see him again the next da for lunch and the homecoming football game, then headed to our hotel for the night.

Our hotel was in a really sketchy part of town, totally under construction and turns out I had made the reservation for the week before. That was the third strike. It took about 2 seconds for Scott and I to decide to just go home for the night. Layton seemed a little disappointed he didn't get to say a better good-bye but wasn't too upset he now didn't have to go the football game the next day.

Even though our visit got caught short, we had such a great day with Layton! On the drive home we realized how doable that would be on any Friday when Scott can get the whole day off and committed to do it again soon.