you did it!

On May 20th... John finally walked his graduation ;) . It started at 8 am!!! His mom came over to the house at 6 and we all left together in our car. His dad wasn't feeling too good, so he didn't come with us. We got there bright and early. We beat the traffic, beat the crowd. A price we paid... woke up at 5:30am! Anyway, we were glad we went there early cause we got the best seats we could get. 1/2 to an hour later, everyone started to arrive.

on the way walking in, i stopped john to pose next to this board, he obediently listened and his mom patiently waited.

this is where the ceremony is going to take place. it's one of the library of this school.

when people started to arrive and took their seats. boy... there were a lot of people. there were probably more than 10,000 students graduating.

We waited forever for John's turn to get on stage to receive his diploma. It started to get very hot at around 9 to 10-ish. We were sitting baking under the sun. No shade anywhere close at all. Finally, they announced "John Joseph Mallard". His mom suddenly shouted giving her piece of support "woooohooo....." or is it "yay...."?? i forgot, i have to admit i was kind of shocked of his moms reaction. I didn't even make a single noise... pretending to be really busy videotaping the whole process. I needed to keep my "good girl" image in front of his mom. :-p

he coming back from the stage holding his diploma

a big warm hug from mom, mom said "congratulations, i am so proud of you" or is it "wow... it took you 10 years to get this stupid s*#%@??"'

my turn my turn.. it's my turn to take picture with the graduate

then the 2 most important women in his life

a group picture

on the way out, I took another one of him in front of the Oviatt library

me being silly...

All his hard work and patience paid off. I am so proud of him!