Skip to main content

Graduation!

Last week we got to go BYU graduation since my 2 sons and their wives were all graduating.  Well, technically, only the wives were finished because my two boys will finish in December, but they decided to walk together this April since there is only one graduation per year.

It was great weather and overall, a really nice day.  In the morning was commencement.  Arthur C. Brooks got an honorary degree and gave a great speech. All the talks were good.







Afterwards, we attended a luncheon at the Kennedy Center which was the college that AnnaSue was graduating and the convocation they were walking in.  The convocation followed in the deJong concert hall.  My one complaint of the day was that the reader only said AnnaSue's name and not the names of the other graduates.  It was very odd. It turned out that the other three graduates were supposed to give their cards to the reader but were not told to do so, so there was a lot of confusion and in the end, their names didn't get read.  I was feeling pretty irritated about it but after we went outside, the woman who messed up found us and apologized profusely which helped me feel better.











That night we had a dinner at our house with AnnaSue's family as well as all our family.  Then we hurried over to the Art Gala at the elementary school to see Camille's art.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Visiting Susquehanna: The Priesthood Restoration Site

On our way home from Palmyra, we decided to go a couple of hours out of our way to visit the recently opened Priesthood Restoration Site along the Susquehanna River.  This is where we believe that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery received the keys of the Aaronic Priesthood from John the Baptist which gave them the authority to baptize.  This site also has the restored Isaac and Elizabeth Hale home where Joseph and Emma lived for a year as well as the home where Joseph and Emma lived on their own. We spent a couple of hours there and I wouldn't have minded a few more minutes but we had a long way to go that night.  It's a beautiful setting, very much in rural Pennsylvania.  However, on the day we were there, cars at a racetrack nearby were detracting from the peace and quiet.  I'm guessing that's not as big of a problem on weekdays. The Hale Family was quite well-off for their day so their home was probably nicely decorated with wallpaper and carpet. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Book Review: Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper

This is a juvenile fiction book about a young girl named Melody with severe cerebral palsy.  Her body doesn't allow her to feed herself, speak, or do much at all.  She's very intelligent with a photographic memory but she can't really communicate.  Finally, in 5th grade, she gets a "Medi-Talker" which is a computer that speaks what she types in.  Finally she has a voice. This book explores what it is like to be severely physically disabled but not mentally disabled. It seems like one of the most frustrating of all scenarios.  She is completely aware of all the cruelty (subtle and otherwise) that her classmates inflict on her because they don't really want to include her in their activities.  One of the saddest moments in the book comes when she realizes that every one of her special ed classmates is kind, where the "normal" ones are not.  Who really has the worse disability? The book was a quick read and fairly enjoyable.  Wha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hansen Family Plot in the Provo Cemetery

On Memorial Day this year, our family went to the Provo Cemetery, as we do almost every year. We spent some time at the Hansen Family plot which contains the grave of my 2nd great-grandparents, Peter and Mary Hansen. They both emigrated from Denmark with their spouses to Utah. My grandfather lost his first wife Ane to cholera on the plains outside of St. Joseph, Missouri, along with three of his little boys within a very short time--about one month. It's a sad story but it's also one of admirable resilience. He brought his one surviving son, Jorgen, to Utah. He married his second wife Maren (Anglicized to Mary) some 9 years later in Utah  She had been married before but lost her first husband at an unknown date. I wish I knew more about her but she left very few records, although I could do more research! Peter and Maren had 6 more children together. The youngest two were twins, Enoch and Ephraim. Ephraim is my great-grandfather and is buried in California. He is the father of ...
Post a Comment
Read more