Sharley's Graduation

Here's Sharley walking in and giving us all a wave.

This may look like she's doing the Hitler salute
but she's actually blowing us all a kiss. 

Sharley's graduation was perhaps the easiest of them all. Either that or I'm just getting used to  them. The graduations all seem to have a theme. Alycia's had the best commencement speaker, Brandons had the best student speaker, Ben's was the longest (but at least we had comfortable seats, comfortable weather and the front row. His commencement speaker was also very good), but Sharley had by far the best announcer. 

Sharley's commencement was for the art department which included all of the departments like art, photography, dance, music, theater etc. You get the idea. Well when it came time for the grads to walk they announced the man who was to read out the names and then they said he was from the Theater department. Ben leans over to me and says, "well if he's from theater then he should be good." The next thing we know there is a deep booming voice that is very animated and full of confidence. If he announced any names wrong we would never know it.

They had all of the graduates who had honors stand up.
I know she had excellent grades but I don't know
which of the "Cum lauds" she got. 

This morning we got up early and left the house around 6:45. We arrived at the University of California at Long Beach just after 8:00. Luckily the traffic was great. Ben had us some seats saved which is good because they were already starting to fill up. 

They then went through the program is a prompt manner and all in all it was a very nice program. They're commencement speaker was an alumnus who was an industrial designer making medical equipment. He actually was involved in the design of a heart bypass valve that was later used to save the life of his grandson. How cool would that be?

Walking up to accept her diploma

After the program was over the graduates walked and since it was only the Art Department that didn't take too long and then it was all over. 

Sharley shaking hands with all of the important people. 

Sharley then showed us all her home away from home. The CSULB campus is actually a very pretty campus. One scary thing though was when we were leaving. We were going down this escalator and Mom was carrying Hayley and Serene was carrying Sydney. Because they were carrying the girls they weren't holding onto the hand rail. Well the escalator suddenly stopped. I mean instantly, it was so sudden that we were all thrown forward. A lot of people were carrying plates of food from the reception that they had and there was food and people flying all over the place. 

As soon as the proceedings were over a whole lot of balloons
were released and a bunch of beach balls magically appeared.

I did happen to be holding the hand rail and Serene was behind me so I was ready to catch her if needed but she managed to not fall down but no one was where they could catch Mom. Luckily she didn't fall down either but others did fall and it was rather scary. You don't want to be dropping babies on those metal stairs. 

Unfortunately Ben had to go to work right away and Sharley's family took her to the beach so we took the opportunity to check out the place. Ben told us about some Japanese gardens that were on campus and since it was free we decided to take a look. They were beautiful. What a peaceful place.

For a quarter you could get some fish food to feed the fish and those guys knew exactly what was up. If anyone even stood near the edge of the pond you had fish piling on top of each other just to be the first ones fed. Sydney loved it but she wasn't about to get too close. 

After the gardens we headed back to San Diego. The rest of the day has been rather relaxed. Tomorrow Sarah is off to Disneyland with the High School seniors and I'm going to sleep in and try to have a relaxing Saturday. We'll see how that goes. 

--------------------trivia--------------------

In the last thirty years not only have humans grown fatter but so have the animals (everything from rats to monkeys). They think it may be toxins in the water that affect our metabolism.

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