Two Down, Three To Go.

 Wow, what a long but wonderful day. Brandons graduation started early this morning so we headed up last night and stayed in a Motel room so we could sleep in a bit. Sarah is into finals so we left her behind. I don't think she liked that but oh well. This morning we got to Pepperdine early and were rewarded with perfect seats. We were close to the front and had excellent views of Brandon coming in, seating, walking up to the front, shaking hands and then sitting down again. It was perfect.  We saved seats for Serene and her girls, Ben and for Serenes mother. Ben got there right after us. He rode his motor bike. It was a beautiful day. 


When we arrived at the field the view was stunning. How many graduation do you get to attend where you are right on the edge of the water? 


When we attended Alycia's graduation she had perhaps the best commencement speaker I've ever heard but their student speaker was a bust. Brandon's was the opposite. His student speaker was perhaps the best I've ever heard but his commencement speaker was a bust. Don't get me wrong, the things he said were very good and absolutely true. Essentially he said that you can't be good at your vocation (be it a lawyer or anything else) if you don't include God in it. The problem is that he was boring and presented his message more as a lecture than as words of wisdom and advice for the students. 

The other problem was that he spoke all about Christianity but there were a lot of Jews, Muslims and Buddhists there. I suppose since Pepperdine is a Christian school you can't fault him for that but I think there were many more effective ways he could have shared his message that would have been less offensive and much more effective.


After the ceremonies were over we took some pictures with the beautiful Pacific Ocean in the background, let Brandon say some goodbyes and then we were off to the "Baby Blues Barbecue". Brandon claimed that they have the best barbecue in the world and I do agree that they were pretty darn good.




Since we were there so early we spent a lot of time baking under the hot sun. Since there was a gentle breeze coming off the water.  We didn't even know we were being roasted but tonight we're all just a little bit pink. Hopefully we'll all be healed in time for Ben's graduation on Sunday. He informed us that his graduation will be a lot longer than Brandons. His class is so big that they had to break it into two groups. Thank goodness for hats. 




After the barbecue we said goodbye to Ben and Kathrine (Serenes mother) and headed back to San Diego. It was a great day. 

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Most large businesses prefer to hire their new employees from large state schools rather than from Ivy League schools. They find them to be more well rounded and better leaders.

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