Graduation and Father's Day

I can't sleep so I thought I would post this morning.  The birds here are singing as early as 4 am and as the sun rises they sing louder.  I love this time of the year because of the fact the days are long.  The sun begins to show itself early and it goes down about 10 pm or so.  This week summer begins and we begin to lose light again :-(  And as much as I love the long days, I hate the cold short ones.

Anyway, last Friday we had graduation.  I work at a local community college and so graduation is a big thing.  We have such large graduations now that we can't have them at the college.  We use to have them there but the grads could only ask 4 people to their graduation because of the lack of room.

In California, there was always room at a college or high school... usually outside in a football field or something.  But here, not every college or school has a football field... plus the weather is so wet still during June, we still are forced indoors. 

Now we hold our graduations at ShoWare.  ShoWare is an event center in Kent WA... it is the home of the Thunderbirds (ice hockey).  I have been there for a few events but never ice hockey. I've gone there to listen to speakers, or a concert... and graduations.  Kari did go with the boys this year with the Royal Rangers to see ice hockey.  It seems to be very popular.

At ShoWare we don't have to tell our students graduating that they can only bring four guests.  There is also a large area to hand out their name cards to be announced and to line them up.  The bagpipers are off to the side of the back area to practice and get ready to go into the building.  And finally, around 7 pm they begin to walk into the event center and the staging area suddenly grows silent.

We (those from the office) stay around for a while waiting to see if we have any late grads... and this year we had three running in trying to find their way.  Afterwards, we then head out a block down the street to Mama Stortini's for dinner.  We don't often get together outside of work except for now and at Christmas.  We always talk about doing it more often but the six months seem to fly by and we don't.  But it is nice.

Sunday was Father's Day.  It is sort of a strange day around here for us.  My dad is in heaven.  Kari's dad isn't here... and neither are the boy's dads.  So, we keep it a low profile day.  We don't go to church because of the focus of Father's Day so the boys don't wonder where their dads are.  And my ex use to play the role of their "papa" and he is now no longer in their lives by his choice.  Most of their past Father's Day was all about him.  The church, like school, have the children make gifts etc.  So instead we went to the movies and had some family fun together. The boys choose Madagascar 3 and ate popcorn.  It was a good time.

Have a wonderful week... mine should be more quiet this week because of the fact the students are gone on a break.