East Coast

I am in Philadelphia now. Dakota, Brayden and I are on a whirlwind tour of some colleges on the East Coast. We left Sunday afternoon and will be returning Friday afternoon. I spent the last month trying to figure out a way to bring Sasha with me, but just couldn't do it. It has been an exhausting trip. We arrived in D.C. at midnight on Sunday. One of the pieces of luggage was broken, so we waited while they gave us a new, comparable one. We had to take a shuttle to the rental car building and then wait in a LONG line there. We then had to drive to my friend's house, where we were staying for the night. I hadn't seen him since college (twenty two years). I think we got to his house around 3:00 am.(Eastern Time) Nice guests! By the time I got Brayden to get to bed it was 4:00 am and we had to be at a college (in Baltimore) that was about an hour away at 9:00 am. I got just over three hours of sleep. It turned out okay. Both kids slept in the car on the way there and on the way back after we toured the school. We spent the several hours at the school before we headed back. We are going to the schools for a tour and to find out about financial aid. Colleges are SO EXPENSIVE! We had dinner with the friend that we stayed with as well as another friend from college who also lives in the area. It was great seeing them!
We had lunch with my friend and then headed out today to see a college in Philadelphia. I really liked the school. It is in a great location downtown and she would be able to see and do a lot in the city. Also, it seemed like a safe area. We just got a hotel room for tonight. I got on the computer, Dakota is sleeping and Brayden got on his pajamas and is in bed coloring a coloring book. We are going to head out soon to find a place to eat dinner. I would love to play tourist, but we are pretty wiped out. I really like this city though and want to come back sometime and spend more time looking around. We may do a little sightseeing tomorrow morning before we leave for Rhode Island. We will be staying in Providence tomorrow night so we can get up and see a college there Thursday morning. After seeing that school we will be driving to Boston. I have another college friend who lives there. I haven't seen her for about twenty years. We will be going out to dinner with her Thursday night and staying at her house that night. The next morning we will be checking out one more school and then driving around the city for awhile before heading back to California.
We were hoping to get more of a positive response for financial aid. I had hoped and heard that there was more financial aid available at colleges and you just had to look into each college. All we are really being offered is loans and smiles. We want grants and/or scholarships and smiles. Nope, not happening. Well, hopefully one or two of the people we meet will see how excited she is to go to one of the school and will help us out. That was the intent of the trip. Also,we needed to check out the schools. She has been accepted into several and we need to make the decision be May 1st.
I took a few pictures of Brayden on a tree surrounded by cherry blossoms. Luckily they were still blooming while we were here so we got to see how pretty they are.