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serendipitous reflections

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

1000th post: Graduation and Family

I can't believe this is our 1000th post on this blog ... and what a better way to mark the 1000th post than with significant family events. Jeni and I just got back from a whirlwind five days of travel and graduation. We are very excited for both Tommy and Aaron, our nephews who graduated high school this weekend.

Tommy's graduation was in Knoxville on Friday. We headed out from work early to get there in time, and met everyone at Doug's house. We were greeted by Tommy and Jeni had this conversation:
Tommy (wearing a neck tie): "I hate this tie."
Jeni: "You look nice."
Tommy: "But I don't like this tie."
Jeni (trying to change the topic): "Are you excited?"
Tommy: "I'm not excited about this tie."

I don't think Tommy liked wearing a tie. But he looked really nice, and you can see how happy he was with himself, and he should be!

Can two people look any happier???
I think Cathy was a little happy, too.

Everyone's here for Tommy
It was nice to get our whole family together, minus Kelly and Cathy's brothers.

(More pictures of Tommy's graduation)

Unfortunately we had to head out of town the next day and did not get to visit as much as we would have liked, but we made the most of the brief time we had. We enjoyed a long breakfast with Chris and his dog Fenway the next morning before heading down the road to Mississippi.

Aaron's graduation wasn't until Monday evening, so we were able to take our time driving in on Saturday, have a nice lunch for Aaron on Sunday, then rest and eat lunch at PF Chang's on Monday before graduation that night.

The walk....
Aaron walking the stage ... I even managed to get a picture. I liked how they did their picture with the graduates.

Jeni and Aaron
He's grown so tall. I really think Jeni should have been on a step or two for this picture.

The family
We all clean up pretty good, I think.

Is Red graduating too?
Even Red Dog got in on the graduation action, wearing (very briefly) the mortar board from the graduation cake.

(More pictures of Aaron's graduation)

We really enjoyed our visit to Jackson, and at least got to spend a few days with family there before heading back. We had to leave first thing Tuesday morning, and actually managed to make the nine hour trip with only one stop. We passed a group of Veterans on motorcycles (Run for the Wall) riding their way from LA to Washington DC for Memorial Day. There were probably a couple hundred bikes, and they just happened to pull off on an exit right as we caught up with them or we would have been traveling in the midst of them for some time, I think. Jeni snapped a picture or two, but I'll have to post them later.

It was a quick weekend, but we were glad we could be there with Tommy and Aaron. They both are going off to college in the fall, and we are so excited for them and all the adventures ahead of them!

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