Graduation Day!

High school graduations? Meh.  They are just really long events with a lot of painful reminders of what my children experience during high school.  There is no question that my children will graduate, so we wait for them afterwards and head to Applebee's.

College graduations?  The BEST!  Seeing Ethan graduate from college was such a proud moment for John and me.  And the cherry on top?  Rebecca was graduating too!

It was fun to spend two days celebrating the big event.  John and I started out the day by heading to the Mt. Timpanogos temple.  I'm not going to lie--I'm incredibly jealous of all the members of the church in Utah who have easy access to fully functioning, large-scale temples.  It's my dream someday to live close to a temple.


Afterwards, we headed to commencement.  All of the kids graduating at any level (undergraduate, Master's, Ph.D.) gathered together in the Marriott Center.  It was an honor to be asked by Ethan and Rebecca to take graduation photos before the event.

This picture was taken in the Tanner Building.
Despite the flags, it's actually the building that Rebecca practically LIVED in
for her Master's degree in Public Administration.

One of my favorite pictures of the day.  I LOVE that they both decorated their hats--
no worries about finding them after they are thrown in the air!

Ethan in front of his main building.  I think it's the Joseph Fielding Smith Building.

Rebecca's family came for the big day.

I couldn't resist taking a selfie with my boy.  I was just so happy for him, and it was touching to think back on all that he had accomplished over the past six years (including serving a mission).  It still feels like it was only yesterday that I was sitting in on college visits and wondering exactly what his future held.  This was a MAJOR milestone, and the smiles are real, folks.

Little did I know that this selfie would come in handy in just a matter of minutes!

Rebecca told us that we needed to be seated 45 minutes before the program began, and knowing me, I'm a rule keeper, so we were there.  Looking up at the Jumbotron, there was a request from the school to post Instagram photos with the BYU hashtag #byugrad.  Man alive, there's nothing like learning to use a new app with that kind of pressure.  In fact, I'm not sure how many times I posted that selfie to Instagram AND Twitter, but something must have worked:

Trust me, if I'd had any knowledge of the app, I would have been far more creative in my sentiments, but only five minutes after I posted this pic, the powers-that-be stopped accepting any new pics, and this picture was recycled several more times on the Jumbotron.  I may not take out half-page ads in my kids' yearbooks, but you better believe I can get our faces on the Jumbotron!

There's my boy!  He was easy to spot with his decorated cap :-)

Afterwards.  In fact, as Ethan was walking out of the arena, someone yelled from above for him to stop so they could take a picture of his cap.  Turns out, they were from Ann Arbor!

The commencement was good.  I actually enjoyed it, but most of the audience gave the commencement speaker bad reviews, and Grammy gave the seats even worse reviews :-)

I was really happy for Ethan despite the fact that he wasn't graduating from American University.  He knew it was the right choice to switch to BYU after his mission, and he still ended up getting into Michigan (which was the ultimate goal) for a much cheaper price.

However, I felt an incredible amount of pride in Rebecca's accomplishment.  Never having gotten my undergraduate degree, there was such happiness, knowing that she had not only graduated from college, but had gone even further.  She will be such a great example to her children of perseverance, dedication and, to be honest, just plain old smarts.

A perfect example came the next day.  Because Ethan and Rebecca were graduating from different schools, they had separate convocation ceremonies.  Rebecca decided to walk with Ethan since, in her words, she'd already gone through her own graduation :-)  The ceremony was at 8 a.m., and without pointing any sleeping-in, or food-poisoning fingers, some people in my party made us late to the ceremony.

Turns out, it didn't matter.  We only missed the student speech, and catching the tail end of it, we didn't miss anything really.  Sitting in our comfy, cushioned seats, we listened to a wonderful convocation address by the Romanian ambassador to the United States.  It was interesting and touching to hear of her and her children's experiences, moving to the US.  In some ways (the cultural differences), I could relate, and in other ways (teachers being kind to her children in school), I couldn't.  At the end, she quoted several maxims from Benjamin Franklin which were completely appropriate for the graduates.

Too, because Ethan was graduating from the Kennedy Center for International Studies, there were two performances of native dancing.  Others thought it was kind of corny, but I loved it.

Finally, it was time for Ethan and Rebecca to receive their diplomas.  I had butterflies from the excitement.  I stood up and ran over to where I could snap some pictures.  Oh my goodness, it was so good to see them together, knowing that they had spent the last two years, working together for this goal.

After the ceremony, the school sponsored a small brunch.  Crepes on the back lawn.  It was another perfect day with the sun shining.  We ran into the ambassador outside, and I couldn't help but gush over her speech, and beg a picture.

A nice picture of the two families.  Man alive, Ethan is TALL!

We weren't in any rush afterwards, so we ran into John's building back when he was a student here:  the Eyring Science Building.  It was funny to watch John read the scientific descriptions behind the hands-on experiments in the main lobby.  All he could do was sigh and say how happy he was done with school....

We had made plans to meet up with the Schrievers at The Cheesecake Factory near Salt Lake City.  Oh my goodness, eating there brings up the same feelings when I used to walk into the Polish pottery factories.  So many choices, and no idea what to choose!  One thing was for certain though:  we were all ending our lunch with cheesecake! :-)

While having brunch after convocation, we ran into some good friends from Germany who had a daughter-in-law who was graduating.  Without missing a beat, the Drapers told us that they had gone to a place called "Get Out Games" in Provo, and that we should definitely go.  They promised us that we would LOVE it.

So after lunch, Rebecca went shopping with her mom and sister, and the rest of us headed to Get Out Games.  This was seriously so. much. fun.  It's called a "live escape" adventure, where we competed against another team to get out of a room.  We had 60 minutes to solve puzzles, crack codes, find the gold and get out.  It proved to me that there is at least ONE redeeming quality in Provo!

Yes!  We won!

Afterwards, we headed to a graduation party, hosted by Ashley and Payden McRoberts, Mike and Katrina's oldest daughter and her husband.  It was good to see the family and enjoy our last little bit of time in Provo.  We flew out the next day, but we didn't need to say goodbye to the kids since Ethan, Rebecca and Johannah were driving across country in a few days to come back home.