No matter how old students gets or how far away their school is located from home, parents always seem to be there to check up on them.

Family Weekend, sponsored by the Student Programming Council, starts today and runs through Sunday with a weekend full of activities. Some SIUC students are preparing for the parent invasion.

My parents called and surprised me last Sunday by saying they were coming down this weekend, Tarynn Feil, a senior in dietetics from Wilmington, said. I’m really close with my family, so it really made my day.

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I think they just wanted to check up on me after my 21st birthday to see if I was still alive, she said.

Feil said her parents have never visited her in Carbondale before, and she is planning to attend the football game with them.

Paul Mitchell, Executive Director of SPC, said the family weekend tradition was started about 10 years ago under the name parents weekend,’ but was expanded to include family in the custom.

The purpose of this weekend is to show off SIU to students’ families to see why the students want to go here, Mitchell said. It’s a magic time on campus because there are so many things going on, both on and off campus. It becomes sort of a tourist place.

Families can come down and say,’We made a good choice.’

Erin Laur, a freshman in business education from Benton, said she asked her parents to come down for the weekend so she can show them around campus.

I think I’m turning into my mom because I’ve been cleaning so much this week to prepare, Laur said.

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Bill Mamer, a freshman in history from Woodridge, said he will not be able to do the two papers he has due on Monday because his parents want to be shown around campus.

I’ll probably have to clean my room, Mamer said. There’s a bottle of Jack Daniels that my roommate keeps in the fridge that I will probably ask him to get rid of.

Patrick Black, a freshman in aviation management from Wellington, Ohio, said this is the first time since school has started that his parents have been able to come see him.

I’ll probably have to do a little cleaning before they come, Black said. I’m also going to ask my roommate to hide a certain poster from my parents, Black said.