Pomp and Circumstance

Presenting...

The kids were in charge of decorating the banister, I thought they did a great job.

The latest graduate from University of Southern California's System Architecture and Engineering Master's Program!

Hooray! After nearly four years (with two semesters taken off, one when Kiwi was born and one when he was studying for a certification for work) Mike has completed his Master's Degree! We are so excited! He's chugged though one class at a time while working full time and now it is finally done. I can't believe it! I am so proud of him and so, so excited to have him done! The reality of having him homework free in the evenings hasn't fully sank in yet since he was out of town last week, but the couple of nights that he has been home since turning in his final have been wonderful. It seems weird to not have him attending lecture or doing homework, but I think we'll adjust :).

As I glanced back at that last paragraph I noticed that it is full of exclamation marks. Normally this is a punctuation I try not to overuse, but I am not taking any of them out, because this really is THAT exciting to our family.

Mike decided not to fly to graduation, so we through him his own graduation on Friday which was the day USC was holding commencement. The hat is a dollar store graduation decoration, the tassel a dollar store 2010 key chain and the robe I fished out of my old high school bin of stuff in the garage (I knew there was a reason I was keeping all of those tubs).

Little Man was in charge of handing out the graduates diplomas.

Kiwi "hooded" the Master's recipients. Yes, I know that says AHS, but just pretend it's USC.

And the diploma which should arrive in the mail in about six weeks...it's got nothing on this home made one. "World's Greatest Student." How are they going to compete with that?

Going back for my own Masters is not out of the question some day and maybe Mike will pursue another degree in the (far off) future, but neither one of those are in the plans for a long, long, long time.

"School's out for the summer. School's out forever!"

Congratulations Mike. We're proud of you!