So sorry Steph missed that amazing experience. Our day started at 5:30 AM
. We left for Brownwood at 6:15 arriving in time to do a little shopping and lunch at 11 at her favorite restaurant, Humphrey Pete's, for one last meal there. She'll get her "big" gift tomorrow night when we celebrate her graduation/Mother's Day at Taste of Texas in Houston. Gave her a "token gift" today...a tee shirt with her favorite, Stitch, celebrating with fireworks.
Treavor had finished packing up most of her townhouse when he arrived about an hour before we did and she had to be at a short graduation practice at 1 so we did a little more shopping and made our way to HPU. Got to visit with her best friends parents before we were allowed in for seating. After practice she came and showed us her most prized
sash...the Honor's Academy blue & gold sash and the red/white/blue braided rope; only 6 students of the graduating class were honored to receive these sashes.
She graduated Summa Cum Laude; the yellow sash and braided rope represent her Degree in Mathematics along with the Guy D. Newman Honors Academy sash & rope for her Degree in Civic Leadership and Public Policy (and, for her, receiving the Sumners Scholarship); the medal with the red/white/blue ribbon represents the Honors Academy (the 2 professors on stage pinned it on the Honor Academy grads before they received their diploma) and the one with the red sash is the ASC Student Scholar/Athlete. Dr. Hines gave the diplomas. We had great seats but not much luck with photos. Thank goodness friends were in different parts of the Auditorium with different lighting and Amanda's phone takes awesome pictures so I have plenty photos from screen shots.
We'd planned on taking graduation pictures afterwards (she wanted the photos to have all her "hardware" in them
) but we exited the auditorium and noticed an approaching storm!
Complete with 2" hail and high winds according to the Weather apps the girls were using. So we QUICKLY got a few photos, skipped the reception
and "got out of town" as quickly as we could! None of us wanted to deal with MORE hail damage to our vehicles and since Sara & Allie had loaded the odds & ends boxes in their cars while Treavor was moving furniture we were ready to leave. But DID get some really memorable photos...her best friends, favorite professor, soccer coach and family. This photo of the storm came from the Texas Storm Chasers site on Facebook (it's much better than mine!)
These 2 are some of my favorites..."best friends saying goodbye"...