Catch Up Part 4 - GRADUATION

Friday April 6: Graduation Day. This day had been circled, underlined, and highlighted on all the calendars in the house as the BIG day that we had been looking forward to for years. It was almost hard to believe that it was already here. I know that many people decide not to "walk" at graduation -- to skip the whole cap 'n gown thing and all the boring ceremonies. Eric probably would have been happy to do that, but I was pretty persuasive, I was not going to let him and the kids miss this chance to celebrate (in a formal way) all that he had accomplished. Yes, the ceremonies were long (and a bit hard on the kids) but they were inspiring, uplifting, and emotional too. I'm so glad that we didn't miss them.

We were so lucky to have so much family there to support Eric. Eric's mom, grandpa, and aunt Donetta flew in for the occasion. Eric's sister Erin and her family from Washington were still with us and we had Eric's sister Debbie who live in Rexburg and her family too. Debbie had just had a baby 2 days before so she didn't attend any of the events but she joined us for dinner.

First off was Commencement. This is the BIG event where all the graduates for that semester march in together. It was in the ginormous BYU-I Center (seats 15,000). Our tickets assigned us to a section, not a seat, so we had to get there about an 45 minutes early to ensure we were all sitting together. The kids found various ways to entertain themselves while we waited.

Mason and his cousin Kyle played DS

Renae read

Sadie kept Grandma and Aunt Donetta entertained --

reading to them and telling them stories

                                   Colby was NOT a happy camper. He was bored, crabby, sleepy, and wanted to go home. Sorry, buddy. Thanks for being there to support your dad!

Commencement was actually a very good meeting. I got a bit choked up and teary eyed on more than one occasion. Just seeing the hundreds of graduates marching in brought me to tears. He has worked so hard for this! The speakers were good. Elder Ballard of the General Apostles even spoke. The Commencement started with the Procession at 5:45. It ended at 7:00. Then we had a change of venues to another building for the Convocation that started at 8:00pm. Yep, isn't that crazy late!! 

The Convocation for each individual college was less enjoyable as far as speeches went, but still not bad. It was mostly about the graduates marching across the stage to receive their diplomas. This meeting was more casual and the kids were able to move around and be noisier so everyone was in better spirits.  Thank you Erin for coming and being our personal professional photographer for this event. You will notice that the rest of the pictures are SO much better.

These last 4 pictures are candids of the kids and their dad.

They were all so proud. There were even some tears of joy.