A reunion and graduation

Posted by Steph

at 10:55 AM

We have not seen Ratha since his brief visit in ??? (what month was it?) when he was sworn in as an American Citizen!
(trying to find the photos that mom took... still looking...)

So this weekend, we drove to Santa Barbara to celebrate his graduation from the University of California, Santa Barbara! He majored in Business Economics with an emphasis in Accounting. Vince was in charge of taking photos so I was not that quick to take out mine. I forgot to take photos of just him by himself! (~~I will add more photos once Vince is finished uploading his onto our computer.)~~ I'm sure you can tell the difference between his photos and mine, right?

We did not leave until 7:45 PM Friday night -- so they fell asleep on the drive... We arrived around 2:00 AM in Woodland Hills. That's where we had to stay because most major hotels were completely booked this weekend! Imagine that!

Saturday morning, we were all a bit disheveled from the late night... The children woke up when we arrived at the hotel. They had to check out the place.. you know how that goes! Then we finally forced them to bed around 3 AM or so. We finally got into the car around 11:30 AM for another 1 1/2 hour drive to the beautiful campus at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Ratha was already in the student center getting situated. We made him come out so each child could give him a flower lei. (Thank goodness for cell phones!) Then he ran back inside to get in order for the procession out onto the ceremony site. He looked so handsome and we were so proud to see him in his cap and gown!

We arrived a bit late (30 minutes before the ceremony!) so seats were already filled... No worries, we found a nice patch of grass! And we sat down in the blazing sun! Again, no worries -- we had our hats!

The children did fairly well for 2 hours! They had their DSs to occupy their time. E had a hard time staying still. He ran around a lot -- so I'm glad we were not seated. He drew, ate, read, ate, drank, and ran some more! Then it was Ratha's turn to get his diploma. Vince went up a bit to take photos. I waited for his name to be called so I could make some noise... but guess what? They mispronounced his name, so I never heard it! So I did not get to make some noise! When Vince came back I asked him why he came back before Ratha's name was called! When he explained what had happened I felt badly that we did not get the chance to cheer for him! Bummer!!! Oh well, I'm sure he knew we would have screamed for him!

We met him afterwards and his dad gave him a lei too:

His dad was very proud. I had to take the children to get water while everyone waited for Ratha. When I returned, I saw that he and his dad were both teary eyed -- I missed the whole emotional part of the day!!!! Oh well -- Vince says he has some photos to share later!