I’ve been mostly missing from the computer over the last several days. Jesse’s graduation was Monday night (odd night for it, I know!), and Jeremy flew in from RI late Monday night and flew back again last night.

Jeremy’s flight in kept getting delayed and finally arrived — I forget exactly when, after 1 a.m., I think. Thankfully we had nothing scheduled on Saturday, so we could just enjoy a family day before all the busyness connected with graduation kicked. I was really mad that I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep! But we enjoyed the day overall. Jason and Mittu came over later in the afternoon, we all went out to celebrate Jesse’s graduation at Calhoun’s, a restaurant on the river on downtown Knoxville. We didn’t get a table at the window this time but we walked around down by the water and fed a few ducks afterward.

This restaurant is supposedly famous for its barbecued ribs, which I didn’t like the last time I was here, and I normally love ribs (they were too vinegary for me). But I tried their chicken teriyaki and had a few bites of Jim’s pork chops, and they were wonderful.

I think we played a game that night, Last Night on Earth. It’s kind of based on those old zombie movies from the 60s. I wasn’t quite sure about it, but a man from our church in SC introduced it to Jeremy and Jesse — they used to have regular game nights — and he is an ok guy. 🙂 And when you have boys, you end of playing games that might not normally appeal to you. 🙂 It’s kind of cheesy fun. Here is my character fending off a zombie attack:

And the humans won, for the first time since we all started playing, so that revived our interest.

Sunday morning we were very blessed to have the Steve Pettit Evangelistic Team at our church. I had heard their CDs many times and knew people who knew them, but this is the first time I had seem them live and in person.

Sunday night was the Baccalaureate service at the church that Jesse’s school is associated with so we went there for that. Afterward we played another game, Galactic Emperor, which lasted way late. I think I got to bed by 2:30. But I won, so that was fun. 🙂

Monday morning, Graduation Day, I still woke up earlier than I wanted to, but had a lot to do so went ahead and got up. Jason and Mittu came over and prepared dinner at lunch time for us, a version of chicken cordon blue which was really good. That worked out extremely well both because the school was hosting a reception at 5:45 and I wasn’t sure how in the world we were going to do dinner and get ready for that, etc., and didn’t want to eat anything really heavy right before that, either.  It was nice having the big meal at lunch time, then I just made up some various sandwiches for whoever wanted them before leaving for the reception, and the rest of those were available for afterward as well.

The reception was very nice.

And then we had graduation itself. Unfortunately none of my pictures of the stage turned out well — they were too dark and/or blurry. But the school is supposed to make the photos they took of each graduate receiving their diploma available at some point. It was a very nice ceremony. I love the video beforehand of all the students’ childhood photos and a little bit about each of them. I’m hoping they’ll make that available as well to the families as well.

So here is the happy graduate:

Oh, wait, that’s his K-5 grad picture. 😀

And here’s the happy graduate’s family:

And our celebration afterward:

I was surprised that I didn’t get nearly as emotional and sentimental as I thought I would having my youngest graduate, especially after getting sentimental just the week before about packing my last school lunch after 22 years of making them. Maybe it was sleep deprivation, maybe it was just all the busyness and excitement. Maybe it will hit me later.

Tuesday Jeremy had to leave in the afternoon, so we enjoyed a leisurely morning, met Jason and Mittu at the mall for lunch and a movie, then went to Jason and Mittu’s place just to hang out for a bit before heading out to the airport.

So it was a very busy but very exciting few days celebrating this milestone of my youngest son. It was so wonderful to have all the family here for a bit — normally we wouldn’t see Jeremy until August, so it was nice to have this visit before then and not to have such a long time without seeing him.

This morning — we’re talking about colleges, bank accounts, and other necessities of life!