Graduation Day

Big day today.  We left the hotel at 6:45 am to pick up my daughter and head to Sonoma State for the graduation.  It was cool and a big windy, but a beautiful morning.

We had been warned that seating would be at a premium so getting there early was a very good thing.  My daughter Emily had to pick up her cap and gown at 7:30 and sound check at 8.  The ceremony began at 9.

Here are some photos:

About 45 minutes before the ceremony this hot air balloon floated about 500 feet over the ceremony site.  We think it was a student trying to avoid parking problems.

Emily sound checking before the ceremony.

The processional.

My daughter played "America the Beautiful at the beginning of the ceremony:

The featured speaker was filmmaker Morgan Spurlock who won an Oscar for "Supersize Me". Frankly, I was expecting some lefty tripe, but he did a good job.  Nothing political, just a good speech for a graduation.

Heading up to get her diploma.

After the ceremony.

Proud mom and dad.

We got pretty lucky.  Because of the size of the graduating class there were two commencement ceremonies. The morning ceremony which we attended had beautiful weather.  We got a little spritz of drizzle for a few minutes, but otherwise no problem.

About 1:30 the rain came in and from what I hear it rained nearly the entire time the 3 pm ceremony was going on.  They even cancelled some of the ending events because both students and parents were leaving as soon as the kids got their diplomas.  It must have been miserable.

We spent the afternoon in San Francisco where the rain caught up with us.  We had planned to walk the Golden Gate Bridge but the weather and the crowds messed that up.  We'll have to try it again some other time.  We did end up walking about a mile in the rain to get back to our car, but that was certainly better than sitting in the rain for 2 1/2 hours like the afternoon ceremony crowd did.

We're heading down to Monterey tomorrow for a couple of days.  More photos to come.