Taylor's Graduation

After a long, sometimes grueling, but in the end wonderful 4 years at George Washington University, Taylor finally graduated. He earned both a JD as well as an MBA so in escence he got both a masters and a doctoral degree. He would have been happy to skip the ceremonies but there was no way that either I or his mother was going to let him miss out on the experience. His mother also has an MBA and a doctoral degree so this was an amazing day for her to be with her first child. We had dinner Friday night before heading over to the first of 3 ceremonies and Taylor got up and started getting dressed in his robes in the corner of the restaurant. He was having a hard time until his mother jumped up to help.

Does she look like she minded helping?

Not one bit!!!

Friday, May 15th was the Business school's ceremony. Everyone lined up in the Smith Center on campus and the speeches as well as the walking and name calling lasted almost 3 hours. It was so nice not to have kids as well as to be so far up in the bleachers that we could talk the whole time and not disturb anyone who really wanted to listen. Taylor was somewhere in the middle right but my camera's zoom isn't that great. I got pictures of his two teammates who walked just before him but just as he was starting to go, the people sitting in front of us decided to leave and blocked the whole shot. Oh well, I really could just post any of those walking pictures and tell you it was Taylor and you'd never know. We did get to see Jacky and Elise and Elijah for just a minute and it was so nice to feel like we were back home amongst friends.

The ceremony was followed by lots of pictures and a reception. Taylor's aunt Mindy and uncle Bill (okay so really it's his dad's cousin so I don't think that makes them his aunt and uncle but whatever) came in from Costa Rica to see him graduate. He spent a semester living with them in High School and they have a special love for him. L to R is Uncle Bill, Sarah, Taylor, Jeff (his dad), Sonia (his mom), and Aunt Mindy.

Saturday we got to relax a little since there weren't any ceremonies planned. We had an amazing breakfast at the hotel with our friends the Gilberts and then spent the morning walking around Arlington Cemetery (the last time we'd done that it was 3 days before I had Ethan and Taylor really wanted to not have to take 2 tests scheduled for that week so he made me go on a forced march around Arlington for 4 hours in the pouring rain, BTW it didn't work and Ethan ended up being born on the day of his tests but only after Taylor had stayed up until 1am studying and then I woke him up at 5am when my water broke).

That afternoon we went to a BBQ at one of his Business school teammates homes. It was great to see the 5 of them together again- telling stories and laughing about old times. He really did have an amazing group to work with. They were randomly assigned the first day- 1 girl from Argentina, 1 girl from Hershey, PA, 1 boy from India, 1 boy from Arkansas, and 1 Utahn. They had to take all their classes together his 3rd year and had to do almost all papers and even some tests as a team. Amazingly they all just fit well together and they had a great time. Taylor will really miss them.

Saturday night we attended a law school reception at the National Air and Space Museum. It was great to see old friends and fun to walk around the museum without masses of people and strollers. After that it was dinner again with his aunt, uncle, and cousin.

Sunday morning was GW's school-wide commencement. It poured rain most of Saturday afternoon and all that night but miraculously stopped Sunday morning (notice all the blue GW ponchos). The chairs were still wet but Taylor was grateful that the temperatures were in the 60's so he didn't roast in his robe and that it wasn't still raining so they could be outside on the mall for the ceremony. 4 years ago when he graduated from undergrad the ceremony was on the White House elipse so it was nice that this time it was on the mall with the Capitol building as a backdrop. Taylor got to sit with his law school friends and had a much better view on the 2nd row. His sash is different because he has 2 degrees. That ugly brown is actually the Business school sash and underneath is the purple Law School sash.
This is the view we had- yeah for jumbotrons.

And here's Taylor's much better view of Raum Emanuel.

His brother Mack came down from New York for the ceremony and it was great to talk to him.

Sunday afternoon was the Law School Robing ceremony. We had much better seats and were pleasantly surprised to be just a few feet from where Taylor sat. Of course he spent most of the ceremony playing games on his ipod (he's the one leaning forward in the picture) but I guess I can't blame him since they put them all in alphabetical order and he didn't really have friends to talk to- and it took 4 hours!

Here he is walking. Sorry for the wobbly camera holding.