He's a Graduate!!!

We've come to the North Carolina mountains this weekend for a wonderful celebration -- Peter's graduation from Western Carolina University.

He's certainly made us proud! From a high school senior who didn't have a clue about what he wanted to do, Peter has turned into a phenomenal student with a drive to succeed academically and perform brilliantly for his professors. He's done great work in the College of Business as his work study and graduated magna cum laude with a double major in Business Law and Management.

Philip and Kara drove over from Chattanooga too -- that was wonderful! Philip's cheerful, funny conversation helps keep everybody in a happy spot while we visit, and I loved spending more time with Kara. It was a high point of my weekend.

We ate at Soul Infusion, a bistro and tea place in Sylva.

We ate outside because we had the puppies along.

Peter has been part of WCU's Honor's College, so he graduated with that group first at the ceremony. He was fourth to walk in. Philip captured it all on video (thank goodness!). Ramsey Arena was gorgeous -- I enjoyed the strong feel of ceremony and joy there. I met his favorite professor who told me, "You have a great son!"

Both my boys stopped at the same store and bought me the same bouquet of flowers for Mother's Day -- without meaning to! So sweet :) Oh how lovely to have one's children grown and to have them be kind, thoughtful, noble people. I'm proud of both my boys.

The flowers did survive the trip home and look lovely all together in a vase!

We came back to Ridgehaven for the night. Adam grilled us steaks and after dinner we roasted marshmallows and enjoyed s'mores around a lovely fire. Peter's friend Shani came. She's sweet and funny. I said something ridiculous that made Peter scrunch up his nose.

Philip has the established reputation for making the BEST roasted marshmallows in the family. Has a well-honed method over the coals.

However, he is aggressively challenged by his little brother.

This time, I'm inclined to side with Peter's marshmallow (the second one). It is his big weekend, after all, right?

We left Sunday morning but had difficulty getting into the groove of a LONG, 8-hour drive. So we stopped in Brevard with Philip and Kara for a bit. We sipped coffee at Quotations:

And stopped in at O.P. Taylor's toy store, of course. I think Julia and Philip were reliving a bit of childhood:

The obligatory photo with the nutcrackers:

We're back home now, with noses back to grindstones. It was a lovely weekend with almost all of my kids (we missed you, Anna!!), and reminded me that no matter where we go, or what we do, these folks are my peeps!!

Anna's Graduation

She came! She studied! She conquered! This little girl is a college graduate! And her proud daddy, of course ~

And her uber-cool sistah, of course ~

The baccalaureate service last night was good. We enjoyed the speaker, who was engaging and talked to the students about the importance of their decisions, of diligence, and of their destiny as children of God.

Kelvin Cochrane grew up poor in Shreveport, La, and when his father left the family and then died, leaving a wife and six kids, they went from being poor to being "po'," as he said. He rose over the years until he was fire chief in Atlanta. Pretty amazing!

A wonderful reception was given in the gym for everyone. As you see, my face is much better since the bee sting. I must confess, as I was beginning this blog post a few minutes ago, I saw a wasp flying around the room, and I was much more nervous than I used to be about wasps. When you know that a random wasp could force you to jab an epi pen in your thigh, you become more vigilant than before.

We helped Anna move the last vestiges of her stuff out of her room. This is a lovely painting my mother gave her, I think painted by our dear family friend, Ann Calvert. Just wanted Grandmother to know that she has taken fine care of it, and it is leaving college with her :)

At 9:00 this morning the graduates, impressive in their black gowns and caps, gathered on the college steps for a class picture.

My phone takes lousy photos, but you can see Anna in the middle of this shot below. She has a blue/teal tassel on her cap, and she's looking at the camera.

Morning sun was shining just over the rooftop. It looks like God's glory is blessing these young adults as they take off into their lives.

Philip left home at the crack of dawn to get here in time for Anna's big day!

And here she is -- officially in the program! Cross-Cultural Studies. Anna Kathryn Christiansen, B.S. She missed having "cum laude" after her name by a whisker :(  She only had one "C" in her four years here. Otherwise she succeeded in making all A's and B's in her coursework.

The graduation speaker was Gary Chapman, famous author of the Five Love Languages book. He spoke about the importance of living our lives in a loving way -- are we kind? patient? generous? friendly? humble? serving others? -- and not only with those were close to, but with strangers or co-workers too. A very convicting and useful address to young adults heading into a work world where such love is hardly encouraged.

I nervously went to the front with the other nervous mothers and a few daddies to take shots.

As each department's graduates' names were called, the professors in that department lined up on the stage, and they hugged each one of their students as they walked across. I felt this was an especially tender gesture, one that can happen at a small school. Toccoa Falls has about 700 on-campus students, with another 250 online students.

This is fuzzy, but here's Anna, hugging a professor who taught her the skills she values.

And here's a short video I took of her walk across the stage:

Afterward the building was in chaos, but we caught a few shots of Anna with her professors.

Here she poses with all the Cross-Cultural Studies graduates. It's one of Toccoa Fall's bigger majors.

She introduced me to Dr. Crosby, one of her favorite professors.

"I'm done!!!"

We all went to eat Mexican for lunch. We were famished.

Then we came back to the guest house (where we're staying) for a nice visit before Philip and Anna headed back to Chattanooga. In a few days they proceed on to Peoria for the wedding!

This is Julia, using her flopped-over thick hair to prevent my taking a picture of her face.

This is Julia checking to see if I'd given up. I hadn't.

Philip told us about his job, his life, plans for school, etc.

My handsome hubby. I couldn't resist.

At last Julia has forgotten I'm taking pictures of her, and I succeed. Heehee.

Well, this was Anna's big day, and we are so very proud of her! I remember when we held her back a year, in 3rd grade, because she was so very far behind in math. I wondered if she'd ever do math. I wondered how in the world she'd ever master algebra! Now she's completed four years of challenging college work, done it very well, and had a fabulous internship in China to get practical experience in her skills.

She would love to go back to Asia soon for a long-term stint, but she has a pile of college debt to pay off, and that must come first. I'll keep you posted on what she ends up doing with herself.
Congratulations, dear girl! We love you so much!

Congratulations, Peter!

Today was Peter's high school graduation! We drove to the mountains to witness the event. Here's the handsome graduate with all his regalia.

 He practices silly faces in the mirror so he'll have them all perfect for the stage.

 He must text the girlfriend, who is driving over also!

 The program:

 The stage:

 We arrived very early, so I crocheted. I'm making this prayer shawl for the prayer shawl ministry at the Methodist church back home. I'll do a post later about those lovely ladies and the wonderful work they do. I like this pattern!

 The graduation was in a really awesome venue: Brevard Music Center. I realized later they must have chosen it because it's probably the only place in town BIG enough. There were so many people there!

 This is a really massive hall, as I said. It's open to the air on the sides, so it wasn't air conditioned, but the it was reasonably cool. Well, almost. The whole auditorium was packed by the time it began.

Peter hangs out with his dad a little beforehand.

 And the grandparents came also :)

 Peter, processing to the stage:

 A shot of the stage. Peter is on the back row, about 4 from the right, just before the gap in the heads where a short girl was standing next to him.

 I had to squat in the aisle to get this fuzzy photo of Peter doing the traditional hand-shake with the head of the Board of Education. He has his diploma!! Well, I have it, actually, so he doesn't lose it :)

His girlfriend Kara also came, with her mom, and they came to the house for pizza before driving back home. And yes, Peter did get his hair all whacked off, but I didn't do it this time! It's already trying to curl up and it will grow out in no time.