Driving a car is not as easy as it looks...

First of all, getting to sign up for the drivers education classes and figuring out which nights you could make it to the sessions proved more difficult then it should have been.

You had wanted to get your license originally on your sixteen birthday. But, we had your sweet sixteen party at the hotel (it has been a year already since it happened...) and that took more time then we both had planned for. Then we got off track and when we finally scheduled time to go to take the written drivers test, it had been a while since you were in class and you flunked it the first time.

You realized studying does help and two weeks later you passed. Summer came and you were in the pre-college program and living in a dormitory. You signed up for fall soccer and then winter indoor soccer and we got near January again. You looked on-line to sign up for the Road Test and the first date you could get was about a month away and only a 45 minute drive from the house, a little far, but reasonable. I already had a commitment I could not get out of, so I asked you to reschedule.

When you called me with the next available road test location and date, I felt I could not disappoint you and cleared my calendar. It was almost perfect, about three weeks from your birthday, only three and a half hours away and at 8:20 in the morning. When the day arrive, we left at four a.m. and I drove the first two hours. I got so tired, that I let you drive and actually fell asleep while you were driving (which it hard for me to do...). We made it on time and the road test examiner was surprised that we had driven so far, that early in the morning.

The examiner did not seemed as friendly as I would have liked (the other one was more talkative and have lived near our hometown...) and when he came back, I thought you had failed. He did too. He started out saying " Well, initially she was driving too slow and it forced other cars behind us to try and pass to get around us, which caused a unsafe driving situation" and then said " at the stop sign she almost pulled out in front of another car..." otherwise she drove very well, she passes.

After you took your picture that Tuesday and looked so proud...

actually you were driving better then both your brothers did around the same time they were getting their license....