Radford Graduation Fest - Last Day

We headed home today.  John and Dad left early, I followed a little bit later after helping Brenna finish up packing. She's going to stay one more day for some final time with her friends.  It's very bittersweet today.  I think she is very excited about what's ahead of her, but at the same time I know she's had a wonderful college experience and is sad to leave her friends, boyfriend and comfort zone.  I give her a lot of credit!  I'm sad for her, but trying to keep it to myself so I don't influence her with my feelings.  I'm sure I'm projecting a lot of my repressed feelings from when I was her age.  I'm sad to see her leave Radford, it's been so good for her!

This picture makes me very sad.  It's so sweet!   The drive home for me was very reminiscent of our first ride home after dropping her off freshman year!  I tried not to think to much about it, but I cried a good part of the way home.  I don't think it would be so hard if we were going to have a little more time with her, but she and John leave for Wisconsin on WEDNESDAY!!  Just not going to think about it for now.

Radford Graduation Fest Day #3 - THE DAY!

I can't believe the day finally arrived!  I'm not even sure how to sum it all up.  Maybe the day in pictures is the best way.

On their way

That's a lot of chairs to fill

Getting ready to head out 

Walking into the general Radford ceremony

Biology buddies

Coming into the College of Sciences Ceremony

There she goes

And she is GRADUATED!!

Proud Mama and Papa!

Roommates and Biology buddies

It was a really nice ceremony.  The weather was beautiful and we really couldn't have asked for a better day.  Once the ceremony was over, we headed to Brenna's house for their party.  They had food catered and brought in plenty of booze and we were able to hang out in a nice relaxed atmosphere.  Grandma and Grandpa Art and Grandpa Bud lasted for a couple hours, but then they bugged out and went back to the hotel.  John and I lasted a little bit longer.  We finally got to meet "the boyfriend" - Kiefer - seemed very nice.  Seems a shame that they decided to pursue this right before she is leaving - he has a year left.  But, when you're young anything seems possible, so we'll keep our fingers crossed for them.

So freaking proud of our girl!  I can't believe how fabulous she has done and what great things are going to be ahead of her!  I'm still in denial that she's leaving for Wisconsin on Weds.  Just trying to live in the moment and enjoy our time with her!

On a side note... State Championships for Zack today... I followed along on twitter.  They needed to finish in the top 3 to qualify for Nationals.  Only 4 boats in his race, so we were hopeful!  I waited in anticipation has race time drew close.  I must have refreshed twitter 1000 times!  They DID IT!  3rd place by 0.4 seconds!  Holy cow, I think I'm glad I wasn't there, I probably would have had a heart attack!  I'm not sure today could have been much better on all fronts!!

Surrogate Moms looking out for my boy while I was gone!

Heart attack race!

Radford Graduation Fest Day #2

What Brenna neglected to tell us, was that she hadn't done ANY packing or cleaning before we got there.  I guess that's what graduation guests are for!  We spent all day packing up and throwing out stuff.  I'm not sure 2 cars are going to hold it all!

Grandpa Bud was even injured in the line of duty!

Gang signs in the house... for Zack!  He may not be here, but he's always on our minds!

Art and Karen arrived just in time to hit the next 2 bars on Brenna's list... Sharkey's and Riley's.  Long Island Ice Teas were the drink of the evening.  I didn't even make it through one! :O)  Graduating from college is hard work!

Radford Graduation Fest Day #1

Really the best way to sum it up... in pictures...

I think this is probably one of my all time favorite pictures of us.  It really just sums up Dad.  Vodka, Mores, his sunglasses.  I love it!

I guess when you are leaving college, you want to hit all your favorite bars at least one more time.  And she wanted to drag us along with her.  Sometimes it's hard to keep up with the young 'uns!  But we sure tried.  Double Gin and Gingers at BT's, a Radford institution.

Road Tripping...

We are taking 2 cars, since we'll need to bring all Brenna's stuff home with us this weekend!  So Dad and I are road tripping together and John is on his own!

Junk food fest!  Slim Jims and Pepto-Bismol!  My gosh I love my Dad!  Radford here we come!

The countdown begins...

I can't believe in less than 5 days our girl will be GRADUATING.FROM.COLLEGE!!  Every once in a while I relive those dark freshman and sophomore high school days and I am just amazed at how far she's come!

Dad arrives tomorrow and we road trip down to see our girl on Thursday.  Zack is staying here because he's got his State Championships on Saturday.  First regatta for either kid that I've ever missed, but I think this is a pretty damn good reason.  Seems like just the other day, we were dropping her off at Muse Hall and I was crying all the way home!  I am one proud Mama!

Ted Phoenix Regatta

It all comes down to this for the Novices... Ted Phoenix State Championships!  The exciting thing, was they all got to race twice.  Either they made it to finals, top 3, or they went to petite finals, all the rest.  Again with the self-imposed pressure...  I made cookie medals for everyone last night.  Everyone loves a cookie medal.
My freshman were 5th in their heat, but only 1 second off Langley.  The week before they were 47 seconds behind Langley - so a definite win in my mind.  They were last in their petite final.  I think endurance was their main issue.  I told them that as long as they could come off the water and look me in the eye and say they did all they could, then I didn't care if they were first or last.  At the end, they all seemed reasonably happy and seemed to enjoy the season.  All their parents seem to be very happy as well.  I think pretty much every family came up to me at some point and thanked me and told me how much their kids enjoyed the season. That's really all I can ask for.

BTW - The Cookie medals were a huge hit with parents and rowers.  Many of the rowers said they were better and any other medal!  Can't go wrong with a good cookie medal.  Now that the "official" season is over, I gotta say, I think it was pretty successful as my very first coaching season.  It gives me hope that I'm going to get this.