FREEDOM!

Brad and I stood and waved to Keldon as he drove off to school this morning - all by himself. I've entered a new phase of life as of today - my baby got his driver's license and is now driving himself to seminary, school and soccer practice! What will I do with all that extra time??? I'm sure I will figure it out. Let's see, I started driving kids to seminary the year this son was born, over 16 years ago. We only had one year break. Incredible. I'm now:

• free from getting up before the sun to drive to seminary, and the return trip to retrieve the student;
  
• free from the 35 minute drive to school every morning that should only take 12 minutes;
  
• free from all those people that force their way into the lane in front of you at the last minute (where is a cop when you need him?);
• free from the 4 minute plus time waiting on the ramp to get onto the freeway to school;
  
• free from picking up from after-school sports and waiting an extra 45 minutes because the coach decided to run them that day;
• free from driving to and from Santa Luz every weekend during the school year and many times during the summer to take Keldon to his friend's house;
• free from retrieving Keldon from said friend's house at 11pm at night;
• did I say free?
  

Okay, I'm trying not to let this euphoria get out of hand... Let me tell you about yesterday. I picked Keldon up at school a little before 1pm yesterday and we headed up to the Escondido DMV office (they had the earliest appointment available). Of course, we stood in line for 10 minutes and were then told we were in the wrong line and to go stand in another line (so like the DMV), but we made it on time. Keldon had a pretty unfriendly tester, and she only marked him down for going TOO SLOW and for not knowing his arm signals well enough (oh, darn!). Now, how often do you think I will tell this teenager that he is going too slow??? How ironic. And how often do we all use those arm signals? Sure glad they still test that one. So, he passed and is now an official driver in the state of California. I must say I am not sad to not have to deal with the horrific traffic coming out of our area and drive to the high school every morning. He can deal with that now.
After the drive test, we headed over to his soccer game, which also happened to be in Escondido that day (couldn't have planned that better!). He was quite early, so I had a couple of hours to kill at the local quilt store. After I was done in there, I remembered that there was a 99Cent Only Store that I wanted to go to. Nicole always finds the best bargains there. So, I found the store, but what a dive! Yuck. I found what I was looking for and got out of there fast. Don't think I will be returning there any time soon.
Keldon's team won their soccer game, so all in all, it was a pretty good day for Keldon. How well I remember the day I got my driver's license, and on the day I turned 16. It is definitely a step towards adulthood and independence. One of the perks of being the youngest in a family of 5 children is that there is a car for him to drive. No cool car here, just the old family Astro van, but it is still in good shape and he is happy to have it. That only worked out because his brother, who was driving the van, bought his own car last month - good timing. Thanks, Ethan!