Graduation 2013

"A Student in its Prime"

Another trip to Virginia, another graduate to celebrate. We decided to split our traveling into two days, and were thrilled to meet the newest sweetest member of our family, little Alexander Houston. Zander is adorable, and Connor is excited to have a cousin to play with! I see great adventures for the boys in the future. We had a lovely visit with Megan, though it was too short, and Burke may have escaped, but it made us all wish we lived a little closer and could have more family time. Megan is a wonderful mom, and Aunt Merilee is a perfect grandma. 

 We made it into Lynchburg Friday afternoon with enough time to make a stop at Osaka. Of course that was important to all of us! Casey wasn't interested in Baccalaureate so we went to see The Great Gatsby instead while mom babysat, and got locked out of Casey's apartment. It was nice to be the 3 musketeers again especially not knowing when we're going to have that again. Mom crept into our darkened theater to grab Casey's keys, so the crisis was averted and we could all enjoy ourselves!

Casey made the executive decision to not participate in Commencement. He had a sort of "been there, done that" perspective, and since it was no loss to him, we all enjoyed an extra few hours of sleep. We meandered onto campus after the processional and had the place to ourselves. It was surreal. We wandered around, took pictures in appropriate places without a million people photobombing, and even got to watch some of the speaker's address from a private viewing room. I say we scored! Not to mention brunching at Cracker Barrel and playing Heads Up while we waited. We had fun!

 The past 2 years Casey has worked extremely hard. His Masters degree was definitely earned and the culmination of his work is in the form of his thesis "A Nation in its Prime: A Pentadic Study of Walt Disney World's Main Street, U.S.A.". Years, months, hours of blood, sweat, and tears added up to a hundred plus pages of genius. To say we are proud is an understatement! Uncle Casey is officially too cool for school! We lucked out because Aunt Hilary was also graduating with her Masters from the same School of Communications, and we got watch both get hooded in the same ceremony! Wow, life is changing. Uncle Casey is not coming home for the summer, and instead landed an amazing internship at Fallingwater in Pennsylvania. He has already started, and has some great stories. He is working with their social media so of course we will be "liking, pinning, following, and sharing" all summer long.

 One very lucky part of our weekend was all being together in Virginia on Mother's Day. What a special day it was. Nothing fills a mother's heart more than being with the ones she loves on this special day. Connor at one point told me "Happy Birthday mommy" and I explained to him how it was better than my birthday. We spent the day together playing, visiting, and packing Casey's belongings up. We even made it to Macado's. That evening we made our way to the Tower Theatre, which was not even an inkling when I first went to Liberty, and watched a beautiful production of Tarzan. We kept telling Connor we were going to watch the monkeys and he was hooked! We all were, not to mention Aunt Hil happened to be one of those cool monkeys. It was a great show and Alluvion Stage Company has a lot to be proud of. It made me very nostalgic, and as Mrs. Cooper reminded me, I'm a part of LUs theatre legacy. Wow. Connor could one day be acting on that stage.

It was a very special weekend to say the least. The changes on campus are unreal. From the new library, to the new baseball field, I am sure that in a few years we wont be able to recognize it. It was extremely difficult to say goodbye to Casey but he's already grown his roots, now it's time to flex his wings.