Julie's California Blog - Day 21

Julie's California Blog - Day 21, Saturday, April 20, 2013

Sadly, I took Sharon to LAX today for her trip back to Tampa.  Miss you, Sharon.  Thanks for coming to California.  I hope you had as much fun as I.

After I dropped Sharon at the airport, I received a text from Jeff that he needed a ride to the beach.  So I happily headed to USC to pick up Jeff and 5 of his Fraternity Brothers.  They had just completed Hell Week at AEPi and are now officially members of the Fraternity.  I brought the boys to the condo, gave them sunscreen, towels and a couple of volley balls and sent them to the beach.  

 

As the day passed, several of their friends arrived.  We ended up with 12 kids.  It was awesome!  These kids had so much fun on the beach playing volley ball, boogie boarding, football, burying Jeff in the sand, and just relaxing together.

All of them were so incredibly polite to me.  Jeff insisted that I join in all of the activities, making me feel included and loved.  Each one of Jeff's friends are unique and have interesting stories.  I really enjoyed getting to know them.

I had some snacks at the condo, but it didn't take long for 12 hungry college kids to run through the bags of chips and dip like locust going through Oklahoma.  So I took 12 starving kids to dinner at American junkie.  I loved listening to the stories, most of which I promised NOT to repeat, thus I cannot write about them.  Just suffice to say these kids are having a great time at school.  They have already established an astonishing bond of brotherhood.

One of the brothers pulled me aside and wanted to personally offer his condolences.  He shared that he lost his brother a year and a half ago, so he knew something about grief.  Like I said, these are awesome kids!  I'm so glad Jeff has surrounded himself with a group of loyal, interesting, fun guys.

After dinner, we went back to the condo for a few games of Beer Pong.  Jeff and I were a team and we started strong!   

After just four turns, we were down to one cup and our opponents had nine still standing.  I had already written the headline for my blog ... "Old Woman and Son Dominate to Crush AEPi's Top Beer Pong Team."  But alas, they had an amazing comeback and beat us.  I've been secretly working on my game since.  Gotta have that headline.

I called it quits and turned in around midnight.  The troops crashed shortly afterwards.  My rental agreement says this condo sleeps six.  We certainly put that to the test tonight!  Twelve kids slept here.  There weren't enough blankets to go around, so someone decided to turn on the heat and set the thermostat to 85 degrees.  I woke up melting around 2:30 and went outside to turn off the heat and cover some of the kids with beach towels.  College kids can sleep anywhere and EVERYWHERE!  The living room and guest bedroom were wall to wall people!  

I look forward to hanging out with these kids again tomorrow.