Last few days in St. Louis

I'm gearing up to head back home and it has been a really great chunk of time I've been here.  At first, three weeks felts like such a long time but this past week has flown by.  I'm grateful to have been able to work from an empty office in the academic building and be treated like an insider, a familiar face on the campus.  I have absolutely cherished that - such a special environment and it was wonderful to be able to see my girl every day, even if just for a fleeting moment!

This week in particular has been stunning autumn weather which has been very pleasant. I sat outside on my own for lunch a couple of days this week and just soaked up the setting.

The house we/ I have been staying in is directly across the street from one of the school entrances and it is so convenient and lovely!

 

I saw a red-tailed hawk sitting on the lawn and then take off flying right in front of me. Amazing!

And of course, the full moon rising over the campus and the track/ football stadium was so, so beautiful last night.  I couldn't resist just walking around in the evening moonlight to simply enjoy the warm midwestern night air and the moonlight streaming through the trees. Absolutely magical.

It is such a pretty campus.

Fun to see middle-schoolers learning how to paddle on Lasky Pond at the edge of campus by the footpath, too!  In fact, I hadn't ever seen anyone actually on the water so that was fun. I love how Prin makes an effort to actually use the entire 350+ acre campus.  I've been able to do some nice runs on the woods-and-fields part of the campus which have trails marked out, and are semi-maintained too!  

It was difficult to walk away, though.  And awful to say goodbye to Rhiannon.  Wylie came out to say goodbye too, which was nice.  I'm confident that Rhi is in a good place and has a solid network of supporting and professional adults around her, and also a lot of friends who seem to be caring and genuine friends to her. That's about as good as one could possibly hope for, so now I'm off to leave her to it.  This coming weekend she and the rest of the senior year will be heading off to Michigan for a leadership camp.  The rest of the school is also going on respective trips (Juniors to Maine, Sophomores to Boston, Freshman to Colorado) for this week of 'Character Building Trips'.

Old and new friends

Its been really fun to spend time with people who I knew 'back in the day' when I was a student here, and Mr Lindsey is one of them.  He was my cross country coach (along with Mr Simon) and he is still coaching teens to this day.  He always makes me laugh with the way he talks about things.  

So I saw him at church this morning and thought it was funny to do a self-take in the lobby at church!

Later in the day, Rhiannon and I went to Wylie's house for lunch.  It was so great to spend time with Wylie's parents Sally and Matt.  They are a fantastic family and I'm glad that Rhiannon gets to have them nearby to keep an eye.

It's going to be hard to leave at the end of the week to go back to England after being here for 3 full weeks!

Luke Bryan in concert

Oh yeaaahhh! Yeehaw! Rhi and I got tickets to go see Luke Bryan in concert here in St Louis and it was really fun.  Such a scene, with girls dressed in very short skirts and white cowboy(girl) boots, hats, the whole get up.  

We had really good seats (Center section, Row R) and the two of us had such a giggle.  Loved it. 

For the finale, Luke invite all three of the opening acts (Tyler Braden, Jon Langston and Conner Smith) up on stage for 'Buy Dirt' and that was really cool. 

 

After all these months of going through tough times, it was amazing to have a night of music and joy and fun. I'm so grateful for this memory.

Breakfast with Paris

This morning I took Rhiannon and her friend Paris out to a great breakfast at First Watch. It was fun getting to know her a little bit and seeing Rhi and her interact.

 

Friday night sporting competitions

Tonight was the first set of sporting competitions for Principia this academic year.  It was kind of a big deal, with the Principal encouraging everyone to attend and support the athletes playing volleyball and [American] football.  So I went to the varsity volleyball game and I sat next to Sally, who is Wylie's mom.  Since Rhiannon has spent a lot of time at Wylie's house with her parents, Sally is kind of a backup Mom.  A major highlight for me while I've been here has been to get to meet Sally!  

This whole week, including today, has been really hot - in the 100 F (38 C) every day and only getting down to like 85 F (30 C) at night. Of course every building has air conditioning, so its cool and even cold inside, but outside... verry hot and humid in that midwestern sort of way.  

The [American] football game started at 8pm, and this was advertised as really the big event... cheerleaders, drum line, lights, bleachers, visiting team fans, all that.  But unfortunately, in the first 30 seconds of the game, a player from the visiting team got seriously injured.  This was a scary moment for all of the spectators actually because the poor fellow was screaming in agony as his leg turned out to be broken.  The paramedics on site swooped in to stabilize him, and then the ambulance came to take him to the hospital, but for all that time the crowd was quietly praying and supporting him in their thoughts.  After that, the game did not resume and everyone went home.  Neither team wanted to continue playing and they concluded that the very hot weather resulted in the field turf peeling off too easily.  So that was the kick off for the sporting season!

Temporary desk

As I've been hanging around Principia for these weeks, I've been able to set up camp and work my normal 'day job' from an empty office in the main academic building. Its so cool to be here and have a lovely view out the window, and also be able to walk here from my temporary digs across the street.

I haven't actually seen much of Rhiannon, due to her being so busy during the school day and then afterwards as well, since she is stepping in as the assistant to the Athletic Trainer over at the new sports complex, the Bill Simon Field House. Its really cool that she gets to assist this person for the term because she will get to learn a lot of practical stuff.

Back to the dorm

After spending 5 nights in the hotel and then 5 nights here at this halfway house basement set up, Rhiannon has now moved to the dorm.  I know she is really happy to be back with her friends there, but I feel a bit bereft and lonely over here across the street tonight.  Mainly I am grateful for this recent stretch of days where it was just me and my girl staying together and navigating each day.  It was fun to get ready in the morning together, and occasionally go out to dinner together too.  I will take what I can get!

Icebreaker

The senior year has been practicing every night this week for the Icebreaker event they hosted last night (Sat) for the whole school.  It is the first year that the annual event is being held in the new Bill Simon Field House, so its a pretty special night.  They did a Barbie-themed evening with games and contests across the 4 year groups, little skits and choreographed dancing (Rhi is wearing a white top and pink skirt).  

Then we all moved outside to watch the '24' block of ice get smashed.  There were 6 Prin 'Lifers' who had attended the school since they were in primary school all the way up to Senior year, and Wylie was one of them. That made it a bit of a special thing.

Parents and faculty left after this, but the students stayed on for a dance (they ended up breaking a tile on the terrace so had to move the dance party into the wrestling room where it was apparently really super sweaty).  Then the Principal and a couple of other adults took the Senior class to a 24 hour diner where they all had waffles until 1am. Exhausting! But a good full Saturday night.

The first week of Senior year

Phew, what a week! From landing on Sunday and coming to the first day of school on Monday (not knowing her classes and barely even time to locate her school uniform) through to the Saturday evening school Icebreaker event that the Senior class put on, it has been a very intense week.

We stayed at the Hilton St. Louis Frontenac until Thursday when we relocated to new digs (more on that later).  These days all started with a walk to Starbucks for coffee and sometimes food too.  Then I drove Rhiannon to school along with all the other day students for an 8:00 am start.  Later in the week she got a lift in with her friend Wylie who was passing our hotel on the way in anyway.  All good. 

But in fact, I was also spending my days at school as I set up camp in an empty office in the Admissions area.  This was extremely wonderful since it meant that I had a desk and a land line to work from as I called round to sort out different things for Rhiannon as she started her Senior year.

So we've been taking it just a day at a time but it has been a great week.  The 'new digs' that we moved to is directly across the street from the school in the basement apartment which belongs to a school staff member.  We have everything we need from this base, and it has meant that Rhiannon could spend the evenings at school with her classmates as they rehearsed every night for the big Icebreaker event on Saturday.

We are so grateful to be here.

Rhi-entry to Prin

Rhiannon has worked so, so hard over these past 6 months to get to the point where she is healthy enough to be eligible to re-enter the academic world over at Principia in St. Louis.  More than a few people doubted that she could recover from her condition this quickly, but she has proven them wrong so far.  The tough part (ok, well, one of the tough parts) was waiting for a decision from the school that she would be able to return and slot back into her year group to start her Senior year of high school.  We didn't find out until Friday morning (Aug 11) that she would be allowed to return for the first day of school on Monday (Aug 14).  So we've had a frantic few days of sorting out logistics, travelling and getting her back into school.  It has been such a heartwarming experience to witness the love and excitement of her return by the students, teachers and staff.  Monday in particular was full of shrieks, running into hugs, and joyful reunions.  This picture is Rhiannon with Jill and David M, who are both important figures in her life here at Prin, and you can see how happy they are to see her :-)

We are just taking it a day at a time. So while today was wonderful and she has gotten off to an extremely good start, it was an absolutely exhausting day that started early around 5 am when she woke up and then didn't get back to the hotel room until about 10pm. Its a pretty intense environment so we are not going to get too far ahead of ourselves. But today, at the end of Day 1 of school, this is a massive win and we are very grateful.

Sussex to St Louis

We had a decent flight from London to Philadelphia and actually got a nice view of Cape Cod as we passed over the Massachusetts coastline (shout out to Rob!).  Everything was going absolutely fine for our connection to the St Louis flight but then we found out it was delayed by 2 hours, then another hour, then we all boarded and waited for a pilot to arrive.  The pilot showed up, but there was no First Officer with him so we all had to get off the plane and wait another hour for that guy to fly in from Miami, and then we boarded again and left.  Made it to St Louis around 01:00 am and the rental car place was shut (although the call center had assured me that someone would be there since our reservation was tied to the flight info).  Anyway, eventually we called an Uber and the lovely Yousef took Rhi and I to the hotel around 02:15 and we climbed into bed, grateful to have arrived!

We slept until 10:00 am and had some breakfast from Starbucks across the street, then got Yousef to drive us back to the airport so that we could pick up the rental car. Then we went to get our nails done over at a nail place near Straubs and did a bit of grocery shopping before getting ready for dinner.  Rhiannon and Wylie had a happy reunion and we went for dinner at Flemings.

We had a lovely dinner and then went to sleep quite early so we could be ready for the big first day of school tomorrow!

The quick turnaround

We found out yesterday (Friday) that Rhiannon can return to Prin for a Monday start of school, so we are off!  We sorted logistics during the morning (which involved call the semi-dodgy discount travel site that Rhodri used in February and getting excellent assistance from "Sid") and then went out to dinner to the Snowdrop Inn last night.  

This morning we said goodbye and Rhodri took Rhiannon and I to Heathrow while Tryfan went back to bed.  Somehow it didn't feel very real that we were actually doing this big thing!  Anyway, we are off now.  I'll be flying with Rhiannon to St. Louis via Philadelphia and staying there for a few weeks to get her settled in.  

Waiting patiently

 Rhiannon really wants to go back to Prin, and we have been waiting for different people to agree that she is healthy enough to go.  We've been living with quite a high degree of uncertainty, and this is pretty difficult for all of us. 

Even though we know, I know, that things will unfold in the time and manner that will be right and best, it is still really hard to just wait.  At some point in the distant future, it will all make sense but for now its tough.