Rosen House

Jeremy’s counting down the days until his head shaving.  He’s down to 48 hours,and hasn’t reached his $500 goal, so he took flyers to school this week and handed them out to teachers.  I’ll post his bald head Sunday evening for those you who won’t be attending Allison’s shindig on Sunday evening.

Jeremy has found a charity called St. Baldrick’s. It’s a foundation that raises money for children’s cancer research. To be a part of the fundraiser, you can sign up to either be a barber, or a shavee. Jeremy has signed up to be a shavee, and will have his head shaved on April 22nd, at Albert Pujol’s restuarant, Pujols 5. If you would like to support Jeremy’s efforts and make a donation, you can do so online at stbaldricks.org. All you have to do is click on “sponsor a participant”, enter Jeremy Rosen, and check “shavee”. It’s a great cause, and hopefully he’ll surpass his goal of $500.00

After a grueling 11 1/2 hour drive thru the rain, and a $100 dollar ticket in Tushka OK, we moved Katie and her truck load of stuff into her dorm last Tuesday night.  Thank God both girls get their own huge walk in closet!  We did Orientation for 9 hours on Wednesday (they fed us really good mexican) and then another 4 hours on Thursday ( we ducked out early).  Registering for classes for Katie was pretty painless, since the athletic dept. makes sure your classes fit  with the practice schedule.  We met her coach, he seems nice.

On Friday we took Katie to get her books, and then looked around downtown Fort Worth.  Jeremy tried Mechanical Bull riding, and has wounds to prove it!  John bought Katie her first cowboy hat, and she found a fabulous belt (that she didn’t convince her dad was a necessity).  We went to Freebirds for lunch and had the best/biggest burritos I’ve ever eaten.  Then we dropped Katie off at her dorm and John, Jeremy and I went to the Science Center for a couple hours.  After some down time, we headed to the stockyard district and went to a Rodeo, and then to Billy Bobs - the biggest honkey tonk in the country.  We left Saturday morning around 9:00, and yes, I cried.  I nearly did again yesterday when Kevin asked me where his Katie was.  When I told him she was still in Texas, he looked at me with those big brown eyes, and said ” YOU LEFT HER THERE?”  the tone was definitely — what kind of mother are you!   

Jeremy and I spent the weekend in beautiful Carbondale IL, at a swim meet.  He is really coming into his own in the pool.  He swam 8 events and had best times in 6 of them.  That’s pretty impressive considering 3 weeks ago he swam 9 events and had lifetime bests in all of them!  His 100 free is down to a 1:08, and his 50 free is down to a 30.8.  His breaststroke is really coming along too.  The downside (for me) is that he qualified for the championship meet in 4 events, so that means one more meet to go to! (of course it’s not a meet that Katie swims, or that any of the kids I coach qualify for).

Thankfully the decision has been made!  After 4 recruiting trips, what I think was hundreds of phone calls and e-mails, Katie has made a decision on college, and will be signing a letter of intent in the next day or two.  Goofy as it sounds, Katie will be a horned frog next fall.  For those of you who aren’t up on your college Mascots, she’ll be heading to TCU(Texas Christian University).  Now that the decision has been made, she is really excited, she can even buy a cowboy hat if she wants!  So next year if you are in or near Fort Worth, go visit!

Saturday the 9th was Katie’s 18th birthday.  She got to wake up at 5:00am and spend the next 7 hours in a really cramped minivan (Jim sell your van before the kids get much taller!!) We were headed down to Atlanta for Christi Kinder’s (Rosen niece) wedding.  We sang to her at 5:00, but she didn’t seem to appreciate the effort that early in the morning!  After we got into Atlanta, got checked into the hotel and got cleaned up a little, we headed out for a late lunch.  We drove around for a while before we found anything that looked safe to eat, and ended up at a diner.  It had huge burgers, great onion rings, and best of all the most fabulous looking desserts any of us had ever seen.  We gave Katie her gifts, bought her a huge piece of chocolate mousse cake (the waitress cut a taper candle down so she would have something to blow out) and sang her a Hofer rendition of Happy Birthday.  Afterward it was off to get dressed up for the Rehearsal dinner.  While her birthday could have been better had we stayed in town, all in all I think she had a good day.