Seeing all the little kids starting out in kindergarten and first grade on Facebook and Instagram, we started feeling a little melancholy when we realized Christian starts back to class today for what might be his last formal year of classes in the school year forever. Christian was sixteen and Kelly was eighteen at the time. We found this old picture of Kelly and Christian’s first day of school (their Junior year there after two years at Wake Technical Community College) at NC State. Christian is taking classes in Quantum Physics and Functional Analysis (Math) this semester.
Wow! They grow so fast. Great majors too! I advised my kids to do a study abroad for a month or two before they settle into working for the rest of their lives. Or to consider volunteering for a year. The jobs will always be there, but the opportunity to do the things people wait to retire to do will not. Now they could always take the ‘mini-retirement’ travel the world route after working 3 to 5 years or even the work hard for 15 years and retire early, but I think just taking a break to take an adventure is good enough.