Brazil Doesn’t Want My New Graduate

Our Rachel graduated from California University of Pa yesterday …

(excuse the blacked-out area of this picture.  I just realized that bulletin board in the picture is full of names and addresses of customers AND some very private banking security passwords!)

Please allow me some time to brag right now.  Just skip over this part and go to right after where it says “Ok, I’m done bragging now”, if you want. :)

Rachel LeeAnn has graduated in only 3 years of college.  She somehow managed to get just about all of her credits earned to enable her to get her degree with the graduating seniors.  She just has to work a 6 week internship over the summer to be completely done.

She was able to maintain a 3.98 GPA too.  Not only that, but she did it while playing Volleyball … All three years, her team place first in their division and then went on to play in the nationals.               College Volleyball is a huge time commitment.  There are daily, grueling pratices and work-outs.  There are many many classes missed because of traveling to faraway tournaments.  Even in their off-seasons, they still have daily practices and work-outs and tournaments, just to keep in shape for the next season.

So, in other words, maintaining such a high gpa while playing college sports is extremely difficult.

Ok, I’m done bragging now …

So yesterday, hubby and I traveled down to California, Pa for her graduation ceremony.

It’s been a really hectic week for her. 

She had to study for finals, pack up her apartment to move it back home, finish up all the technical things involve with her campus job and closing up the apartment and ….

she had to pack for her trip to Brazil.  Her volleyball team had been fundraising for 3 years to earn enough money for the entire team to travel to Rio De Janeiro for a vacation.

So immediately after the graduation ceremony, she was to be whisked away to catch a plane for Brazil. Rachel was the only one graduating from her team this semester, so everyone else was going to wait for her to meet them on campus.

Everything went according to plan. We had timed it almost perfectly so that she could catch the Volleyball bus to the airport but we hadn’t counted on the huge traffic mess in the parking lot of the football stadium after the ceremony.

Hubby was the hero though because with a 4-wheel drive vehicle as your partner in crime, you can do anything to maneuver around stand-still traffic which might or might not include driving over a cement sidewalk, driving down a closed-to-traffic road and then driving over a very large and bumpy cement medium. 

That’s all I’m going to say about that, other than Rachel was soooo proud of her daddy yesterday.  It had to be done.  It was that or sit in traffic for an hour. We were able to get Rachel to her Volleyball bus just in time.

Soooo, after all that, to get Rachel to the airport in time, the Cal U volleyball group went to check in at the airport only to find that someone neglected to tell them that they needed to have Visas to travel to Brazil.

Imagine the disappointment. Brazil didn’t want them!

So Rachel is here at home with us, getting some much needed catch-up sleep.

They are hoping to quickly get their Visas and reschedule everything so that they can leave sometime this week.  But it’s certainly a mess.

Ok, so here’s some graduation pictures …

These pictures are taken outside of her apartment down in California, Pa. 

Her graduation robe was way too large for her.  She called it her Mumu.  

I’m not sure what all those different colored cords represent but I do know that the more you have, the smarter you are.  I think that perhaps the weight of them must exercise the brain.

Since no one would see it because she was leaving right after the ceremony, she didn’t buy a new dress for graduation, preferring instead to spend the money on a really nice pair of shoes.

Later, she had to peel them off her feet.  Expensive shoes don’t necessarily have to make your feet feel good.

Oh, the many funny faces of Rachel.  She has a million of them …

Hubby is patiently waiting for us to finish taking the goofy pictures.  He just got done loading her mattress and boxspring into the back of the truck.  Coffee breaks are necessary.

This is her apartment.  Her and her roommated lived on the first floor.  It looks really bad from the outside but inside it’s really nice, clean and roomy.

This is before the ceremony at the Cal football stadium.  This is Rach and her boyfriend, Carlyle.

That road in the background might or might not be the closed and barricaded road area that was run over by a 4 wheel drive pick up truck yesterday, on it’s way to make it in time to catch a plane.

Another of Rach and Carlyle.  Carlyle has wet hair because he just got out of bed about 15 min earlier.  I appreciate his presence so that we could get a picture of them together. 

I’m so proud of myself with how well my pictures turned out this time.

I only made one mistake …

Because the stage was so far away, I wouldn’t be able to see Rachel shaking the president’s hand when her name was called so…

I used the zoom on the camera and aimed it right at the President of the university, thinking that as soon as Rachels name was called, I would snap the picture as soon as I saw someone shaking the presidents’s hand.

Hmmm … this really doesn’t look like Rachel.  :)

I got a really good picture of the guy that was called right BEFORE Rachel’s name was called.

Oh well. 

In other news, the “Clay Pot Pansies” pattern is almost finished.  There was an error on one of the printed pages so that will have to be redone but I’m hoping to announce the pre-order sale of the pattern and the kit tomorrow.  So stay tuned for kit price and pre-sale info! 

The hand-dyed wool is ready and waiting for my assistant, Jennifer, to put the kits together. 

Happy Mother’s Day everyone!