Durango Palmers: Graduation

Saturday, May 10, 2014

Graduation Day!

This week is a busy and fun week!

We left Durango early Thursday morning and drove to Phoenix.

View on our drive.

There we stayed with some great friends of ours, Adam and Kristin Bleger, and got to spend Adam's birthday with him.

The kids went swimming and we ordered out and had a great time catching up with them.

Got some fun pics of the landscape around the house. Jack says "mom look! They have a giant pineapple in their backyard!" Haha!

Kristin read them stories before bed. Giant sleepover!

Friday morning we got up early and headed to San Dimas, Ca from Phoenix. We were greeted by hundreds of these. :)

We got to San Dimas just in time for an informational luncheon that Mark attended. The kids and I headed to lunch and then checked into our hotel.

After Mark got back he spent quite a while ironing his graduation gown. We decided not to go to the baccalaureate with him. I really wanted to attend but the kids were just at their limit so we stayed back and ordered pizza and went to bed early.

Mark, on the other hand, dressed up in his one suit. Handsome guy!

Today was the day. Graduation day. What Mark has been working towards for almost 2 years. It's a strange thing though. He's graduated but he isn't done with school. He just started a new class last week that won't be finished until the end of June. Then he will be done with classes. He has a final project due in December. So he's kinda done.

But we are still thrilled to be able to celebrate this monumental day!

This morning we dropped Mark off at Angelus Temple (where the Foursquare founder preached) for graduation rehearsal. Family wasn't allowed in for 2 more hours. The kids and I had some time to kill.

So we went for a drive to Hollywood Blvd. It was cool but so difficult to be navigator, driver and tour guide. Not to mention parent. Add to that the fact that I'm a small town Colorado girl, not a big city California girl. No offense to the few Californians who read my blog, but the traffic is killer! And stressful.

I turned on Siri to show me the way to the Hollywood observatory and somehow wound up back at Angelus Temple. I gave up. We changed plans and went to Echo Park which is right across the street from the church. It was beautiful.

Looking at ducks.

I just loved the tree outlines.

The lily pads were pretty too.

When it came close to being allowed in, the kids and I went and stood in line (that went around the block!). This is a picture of Aimee Semple McPhersons parsonage which is now a historical center.

Our selfie while waiting. Sent it to Mark :)

The church is big and beautiful inside.

We had seats in the front of the first balcony. Right in front of some very enthusiastic and loud cheerers who practically knew everyone graduating!

Name in the program.

Our graduate with his back to us. Second row.

The graduation itself was neat. It was awesome that we got to worship and pray and celebrate. The speaker was a tad long winded...so Jack snapped a pic of his feet.

And I snuck one of Kate.

After the ceremony we found Mark over at Echo park and then took him out to lunch at Red Robin.

After lunch, I snuck off to Trader Joe's to get some snacks. I've never been inside one. I got lots of great recommendations on Facebook and found some goodies. Man they were busy though! Again with the small town-ness...