Thousands of Stateline students will head back to NIU Thursday for move-in day. The usual mix of emotions has an extra painful twist this year, as kids and parents reflect on February's fatal campus shootings. We sit down with one Rockford family preparing to send off two NIU Huskies.

As NIU students begin a new school year, they carry with them more than their belongings. They hold the memory of a gunman and five fallen classmates.
"Nobody's ever going to really forget about it. Now everybody's aware that it can happen here so everybody's got the mindset that we need to be aware of everything going on but at the same time it still is college, still gotta have some fun and try to get on," says NIU junior Nick Hosang.
Nick Hosang says he has friends who decided not to come back this year after the shootings, but those who stayed are bound together more tightly.
"The friends around here that I have we all got closer."
And they're optomistic campus will be safe and feel normal.
"I think everybody's really ready to carry on and start a new year. Last semester everybody was down so now they just want to start over," says Hosang.
Even visible signs of the tragedy are disappearing. There's now just an empty lawn where six memorial crosses used to stand outside the Campus Lutheran Center.
Back home in Rockford, Hosang's parents are helping their younger daughter pack up to join her brother at NIU, with mixed feelings.
"I'm excited for meeting new people and just experiencing everything for the first time," says NIU freshman Lauren Hosang.
"I'm nervous, I'm nervous for her. She is our baby," says Hosang's mother Joan Hosang.
Joan Hosang still has a hard time thinking about the shootings. She says, "You think they're safe and doing what they should be doing. To have that happen."
But she and her husband are confident the university will provide top-notch security, along with big brother's watchful eye.
"Oh I'll be watching out for her definitely," says Nick Hosang.
Lauren adds, "He wants me to be safe."

Lauren Hosang found out she was accepted to NIU the Sunday before the shootings, while her parents were worried and wondered if she would still go, Lauren says she never thought twice.

NIU students will be greated by increased security. There will be private security guards monitoring all the dorms. That's making the Hosang parents feel a lot better. Not surprisingly, they're more concerned that many students. Most of the kids I spoke to Wednesday seemed at ease and NIU enrollment has actually grown this year.
Move in day for the dorms starts bright and early Thursday morning.