Team Studer: my baby sister graduates from college

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

We were proud to spend two full weekends celebrating the college graduation of my baby sister, Tasha. First, we headed out to her school, Lock Haven University, with my cousin Kara acting as stand in spouse (hi, Kara!) since Brandon had accidentally scheduled a golf weekend in Virginia with his uncle the same weekend. We spent Friday evening celebrating with Aunt Uch and her roommate Paige (who has since moved to Montana with her fiance, Hi Peach!)

We also took a little hike around the dike..and I became a poet and emo photographer all at once.

And then I let Booboo walk around in the freezing cold water because I'm the best-worst mom ever.

After a lot of walking, Pizza Hut disturbing, and chasing around Tasha's apartment - Kara and I packed the kids up and headed to the hotel. Oh, and I had to sing Somewhere over the Rainbow 34 times in a row because that's the only way to get Gem to stop crying in the car. Dear Kara, you are a saint. Also, thanks for pretending like you enjoyed my singing even though I don't sound anything like Judy Garland or Ingrid Michaelson. Love, Tabidaba

After a cozy night's sleep at the hotel and seeing these two snuggle bugs, we were ready for a long day of watching our girl get her diploma.

We made our way over to graduation, and luckily for us (or for every other person in attendance), we had seats saved in the auxiliary viewing area - ie. an auditorium with a projection of the graduation.

I say luckily because we made it through the opening comments until our little bandits started to unravel. When they started calling graduates on stage, Kara and I made our way to the back of the auditorium (as I hauled both children on a hip) and anxiously awaited to hear Aunt Uch's name. Thanks to my grandpap (rest in peace, pap:), my maiden name starts with an A - so we hardly had to wait at all, which was a good thing considering I was carrying about 40 pounds of child at once.

And then they called my baby sister and we all cheered, even though she couldn't hear us from the auxiliary viewing area. And then I got a little choked up when I told Booboo, "Look up there, that's Uch. She tried her best."

And then right after that we skipped out of there to play in the grass and the fountains and wait to meet up with Aunt Uch and my parents.

Tasha is the third daughter to graduate from college for my parents (neither of whom got the chance to go to college), so the pride in their faces almost brings me to tears today. (thanks mum&dad for giving us the chance).

After taking advantage of some serious photo opportunities...

We all worked to get Tash moved out of her college apartment and was on the road headed back home. But wait! The celebrating didn't end there. A few weeks later, we celebrated with a joint graduation party with her two long time friends, Katelyn & Josh.

So, here's the whole long story in a nutshell. My parents are part of an awesome group of friends that many years ago decided to make a pact. Every year at the same time, they would all get together and go on a "ski trip" (the term "ski trip" is used lightly here because there no longer is skiing involved. it's mostly a weekend of drinking, laughing, musical chairs, and questionable karaoke, but let's not get hung up on the linguistics of it right now). So anyway, they were all young and non-parents when this thing started. So then they all started having babies and the ski club took on this morphing phase to include fun stuff for us ski club children-with annual "kid's day!" (where they set up games and face paint and double-dare-style obstacle courses), and we all went on vacations together, and had cookouts and sleepovers. And then fast forward to today, and most of us ski club kids are grown ups - having our own babies. We like to call our babies 'the next generation,' which is why I have another 24 versions of this photo below of my Gemma holding Bruce's Layne's hand (aka both 'next generation' babies).

...and also why I couldn't stop grinning when Greyson and Indi held hands and danced (both 'next generation' kids).

Besides being nostalgic during basically the entire day, there was a lot of celebrating and having fun of course. This was a ski club event, after all:)

We partied and celebrated through the extreme heat, followed by the extreme thunderstorms, all of which was secondary to Grey's extreme fever (it was the beginning of his Gianotti-Crosti /second molar coming in weekend from hell)