A Full House

Here it is. The much talked about, long awaited post about our family visit. (OK, maybe I'm getting a little bit full of myself. How many people actually read this blog? It's hard to tell since comments are a rarity! Hint, hint!) Anyway, we had a fabulous time with my family. They arrived Wednesday morning (aka Graduation Day or GD), which started out with a bit of a problem. Two weeks ago, I went to the eye doctor for the specific purpose of being refitted for contact lenses so that I wouldn't have to wear glasses on GD. Everything had gone well: the contacts fit great, I could see fantastically, and I ordered a supply of replacements for the year. Wednesday morning I cautiously stood over the sink in our bathroom to put the contacts in my eyes when somehow the right one fell into the sink and rolled (yes, rolled. I have trouble believing it myself) down the drain. I was able to recover it, but not before the contact took on a minor tear just enough to make them unwearable. I quickly called the doctor's office to see if the contacts I had ordered were in. Wouldn't you know, they don't open until 10am. So I tried to relax and prepare for the long, hot day ahead that would require glasses and I prayed that I'd be able to see the President speak.

Caleb and I headed to the airport after his morning nap to pick up my parents, sister and soon-to-be brother-in-law. As expected, they were ecstatic to see Caleb and fought over who would hold him first. We arrived home shortly after 10am, so I called the eye doctor and discovered that my contacts had arrived! What a life saver? My dad and I took a quick drive there to pick them up, and all was right with the world again!

After an all-too-short morning with the family and playing with Caleb...


...at 2:15pm we dropped C off at my mother-in-law's house and we headed to graduation. My ticket said to arrive by 3pm, even though the ceremony wasn't to start until 7pm. I had expected that we'd run into all kinds of traffic on our way, but it was smooth sailing. We ended up getting a parking space in a garage about a mile south of the stadium, and had walked to the stadium by about 2:45. After standing in security for about 45 minutes, we entered the stadium and waited!


While we waited, we got some pictures of secret service agents and snipers.

Then the motorcade arrived and we waited...

Finally, President Obama arrived on stage and the ceremony began.

The whole stadium was cheering as he began giving the graduation address. As expected, his speech was absolutely fantastic!

And then, as you've already seen, I walked across the stage, shook President Obama's hand, had a brief conversation with him, and received my dipolma from the Dean of the Graduate College.

The conversation went something like this:
POTUS: "Congratulations!"
Me: "Thank you. It is a honor to meet you."
POTUS: "Thank you. It is an honor to be here."

The remainder of the visit was mostly spent playing with Caleb. Thursday my family took us out to dinner at Tarbell's to celebrate. We got to meet the head chef and owner Mark Tarbell who challenged, and won, Iron Chef Cat Cora on Iron Chef America. I was rubbing elbows with famous people all week! We also gave our mother's their Mother's Day gifts from Caleb...handmade picture frames includine Caleb's footprints in the shape of a heart. They loved them!


My friend, Cortney, took some pictures of the family during one of the days they were here, so the grandmother's should have some nice shots for the frames. I'll be posting samples of Cortney's work later this week, so be sure to check back for that. In the meantime, here are some more pictures of Caleb at play this past week.

Fun with blocks

Was I not supposed to be chewing on the tee?

Uh oh!? You caught me pulling apart the playmat again.

Standing!

We had a wonderful time, and were sad to see everyone leave. We're hoping to make a trip to visit or have them for another visit this summer. Caleb is growing and changing so much everyday. While the family was here, Caleb started crawling AND got his first tooth. Unfortunately, he also got his first cold, but as I already mentioned, he was a trooper and is feeling better already.