As we’ve discovered this winter, one of the best parts of living in Sayre is the sledding! We’ve only had a couple of bigger snow storms, but both times we took full advantage of the hills outside our residence hall. The first big snow was during Winter Break — students were all away; we were the only people on campus; so we had the sledding slopes all to ourselves. It was amazing to have the entire campus all to ourselves, and we savored every minute of it. The second big snow was just a couple of weeks ago — students were here and many more than I would have imagined were excited to play in the snow on a Saturday morning! It was amazing to see my kids sledding, and playing, and just having so much fun with some pretty incredible students.
Our life on campus is a mix of alone time (just our family), and together time (interacting and engaging with students, staff, and faculty). Sometimes we do things alone; we have a lot more “alone time” and privacy than many might think (and more than I had imagined we’d be able to have); we do not have an “open door policy” and students have greatly — with no exceptions (knock on wood!) — honored and respected our families’ boundaries, personal space, and need for “alone time.” And sometimes we do things together with students or other members of the campus community. At times our “together time” is planned and organized (events, etc.), but a lot of the time it is very spontaneous and casual (for example, after sledding with the students in the photos below, we invited them over for hot chocolate… which turned into a memorable and deep conversation at our kitchen counter). There are so many times that the “together time” brings such a rich layer to our experience — our kids, especially, benefit so much from it. For example, in keeping with the Sayre sledding theme, that day while sledding, students built a huge sledding jump that we would never have been able to –or at least not have had the energy to– build on our own– the bambinos loved it! Then later that day some other students helped the bambinos turn the jump into a snow fort– which the students soon abandoned, but which K, O, and M played with for days. And another example from that same day: when we were making hot chocolate and the whistle on our tea pot sounded, Braydon and I could not answer the boys’ questions about why/how the whistle whistles when the water boils. I said, “Oh, that’s what these students are for! Just ask them, I bet you at least one of them can give you the answer!” And sure enough, they got a full and lengthy explanation — which, I must say, was very child-centric and age-appropriate — about the physics and chemistry of tea-pot-boiling-whistle-sounding… an explanation that their Sociology Doctorate and Music Composition Doctorate parents would never have been able to give!
Although family life on campus is definitely not for everyone, it works for our family. While we value a lot of “alone time,” we are also a group of five extrovert-oriented people who really appreciate the multiple dimensions of the “together time” too.
