Nicole is on her way!

Nicole just called -- she landed safely in Salt Lake City, Utah and is awaiting her 8:30am flight to Atlanta, Georgia. From there, she has a 1 hour, 15 minute flight to Pensacola, Florida. She said her flight was good, uneventful, and that everyone was sleeping. Before I go on, I want to thank you all for your comments on my blog and Facebook page yesterday. I really appreciate them and I know Nicole saw them, so thank you very much for those.

It's hard to believe Nicole is on her way to college. This is the kid who struggled with reading after she switched schools and had different phonics programs to learn. This is the kid they wanted to put in a special reading class so she could catch up. I said no to that, by the way, and began teaching her myself. A year later, we started homeschooling. This is also the same kid who insisted all through school that she never wanted to go to college. Now here she is -- on her way. Not only that, but she's majoring in Commercial Writing. Special reading class indeed ...

I'm really proud of Nicole. She's had her ups and downs in life, just like everyone else, but she's turned into a remarkable young lady. She treats others with respect, she has great friends, and her faith is very important to her. I hope she enjoys her college experience. Rick & I really wish we could be with her, but the cost for us to fly out there was just too much. Rick doesn't have any time off he can take either, so we couldn't drive. Just one of those sad situations where we just have to let her go and pray for the best. That's all we can do at this point. I took this picture of Nicole this morning. It's hard to smile and look cheerful at 4am, but she managed well.

I'm really going to miss her -- the Holidays can't come soon enough for me.