Graduation Weekend!

Ben's graduation! The first graduation ceremony we went to was for the department. It was very nice and small. You can see the happy family so excited that Ben is all finished, no one is as excited as Kori, she has worked so hard so Ben could do this.


One really nice part of having a small ceremony was that Ben told them that his grandparents were coming and that both were graduates of the 'U' so in the middle of everything else they took a few minutes to honor Grandma and Grandpa for their combined 119 years of alumni. Grandma graduated in 1948 (a year before Dad was born) with a B.S. in Business while attending what seemed like an all-girls school as all the boys were off at war. Grandpa returned with the rest of the male population and enrolled making the school go the opposite direction. Grandpa graduated in 1951 with the same degree. Grandma later went back and got an additional degree in elementary education.


After the pictures were done we headed back to Ben's birthday bash. We had pizza then ice cream and crazy cake which was crazy good! Kenzie and Carson helped blow out the candles (3 and 3 in this case makes 33 not 6)!

Saturday morning we went to the College of Medicine graduation ceremony. It was larger and longer - but still very nice.

After the ceremony we had a fun BBQ back at Ben and Kori's. Rachel and I ate with the kids on a blanket (which Kori later used to take a quick nap), Kenzie and Carson both practiced casting their new fishing poles.

According to Wikipedia Marzipan is a confection consisting primarily of sugar and almond meal, however I didn't know that. Marzipan is my nic-name. Rachel has been calling me that for a long time. Sarah calls me Marciona (or Marce for short), and Rachel just took it and transformed it to Marzipan. So basically Rachel is calling me sugar, and this weekend I got to try out some Gourmandise Bakery items with Marzipan. Only the almond bar thing dipped in chocolate and the small pear tart had Marzipan, the bread pudding and the peach puff both just looked good. We took box of treats back to the house, cut them up in 8 pieces each and everyone had a sample!

Rachel wanted an Ikea shelf but when she got to the sale the black ones were all gone - so she got a white one for Ben and Kori to put in the kids' room. The family all helped to put it together - all but Dad and I who were content to take pictures of the laborers. Aunt Louise helped by holding Chloe, who just watched and listened.

Rachel has been taking an ice skating class! She has learned a lot and showed me her moves! I even picked up on a few but will have to put in a lot more time to get them down.

We ended our fun day by playing one of Rachel's many clue games. This one is Harry Potter Clue complete with passage ways that rotate, house points and dark marks. Rachel, however, randomly guessed her first turn and won. The second round lasted much longer but Rachel still won.

Sunday morning Rachel drove me to the hotel that Grandpa, Grandma, Dad and Aunt Louise were staying at. I said goodbye to her, got in the truck with the others and we headed south to Sunny Arizona. It was a long drive but we survived and made it back without any problems (or water in the fuel).