Taxi!

Getting to the first session was a bit complicated. The Fellowship office arranged for Stanford shuttle buses (the Marguerite) to take us from the hotel to campus with additional routes for parents taking their kids to the daycare facilities. Because I have two kids with a large age gap between them I had to go to two different areas-one for Emma at the bigger kids' Sports Camp at the Old Union and another for younger kids like Phoebe, who was at the graduate school childcare facility. Doug hooked up with some Fellows for golf that morning, so here I was, Mother Hubbard, schlepping my backpack, Phee's diaper bag, Emma's bag with her swimsuit, etc., onto the shuttle.

Clifford, our shuttle driver, was just lovely. And Amy, an administrative assistant in the Fellowship office, was also on hand to help out. We went with the other families to the big kid site, got out to sign Emma in, got back on the shuttle, drove to Phoebe's daycare, got out to sign her in and get her acquainted with the caregivers, got back on the shuttle and finally drove to the auditorium where the first session was being held. It felt a little like my regular life, getting kids ready and taxi-ing them all over town, but at least I didn't have to drive.

I didn't really mind doing all of this alone since there wasn't much pressure to be on time, but it would have been great to have the girls at the same location. I missed Doug, too, but chatting with Clifford and Amy helped make it fun. Having built-in childcare for an event isn't the norm, so I wasn't about to complain since the Fellowship was taking care of families. All in all, Emma was happy to make friends with the other kids while playing sports and Phoebe seemed to enjoy the crafts her caregivers helped her make.