So Amber is officially graduated! The entire family is very proud of her.

As luck would have it, she sat on one side of the stadium while we were in the fourth row of the other side of the stadium. My mom spent the entire graduation standing on her side of the stadium just so she could get pictures of Amber walking.

Poor Christopher was so bored (well, to tell the truth, so was I, but I have more practice at acting interested. I wonder how differently I’ll look at a graduation when it’s my kids graduating…). He doodled throughout most of the ceremony to keep himself occupied.

He even tried to lay down and take a nap. And apparently he wasn’t the only one. Some of the graduates were napping in their seats, too, according to Amber. As exciting as actually, finally, graduating from high school is, the ceremony is always unbelievably boring. I remember at my graduation, I was fidgeting constantly. And I was in the front row, right behind the speakers. When the tape of graduation was played on local tv, everyone could see me moving my fingers constantly!

But anyway, I found one of the speakers to be very interesting. The mayor of Worcester spoke, and she compared the graduates to turtles: awkward and slow. No, I’m just kidding. She said that, like turtles, the graduates need to learn to stick their heads out to meet the challenges in life. They can’t hide in their shells. Another speaker accidentally called the ceremony a “commendment” rather than “commencement.” I caught the mistake, but thought it was appropriate nonetheless. The graduates deserve to be commended for making it out of high school. I was surprised to hear no one say “We did it!” or “You did it!” I was glad, though. I think it’s an overused and cliched phrase when it comes to graduations.

Congratulations to all of the graduates of 2008 and good luck in the future!