The last of our kids graduated from college on May 17th. Despite Paul saying that we didn't need to attend, we couldn't hardly skip it after going to his older siblings' graduations! The SIM home office has strongly encouraged that we make the effort to attend milestone events such as these in our children's lives, so we readily went. But a week before, our son-in-law Zach graduated from medical school on May 8th, so we first flew to Chicago. Mia's boyfriend's parents, who live in Romania, were in Chicago for his doctoral graduation from Moody and our time overlapped by a few hours. Enough for lunch together at a Korean restaurant!
After a few hours at Zach's graduation party, my sister Sandra, Paul, Mary Beth and I started on the road to Nebraska to attend our niece, Andrea's, highschool graduation in Dorchester the next day. Mary Beth was awe-inspired by the graduation party in their machine-shop! I was inspired by the short graduation ceremony and by one speaker's advice to "Don't be an idiot." A helpful pearl for everyone, I'm sure.
The next Saturday, we did it all again at Paul's graduation from UNL in the Pinnacle Arena, a balcony so high it was dizzying. We were proud of his achievement as a Chancellor's scholar and afterwards enjoyed Uncle Keith's latest iteration of the perfect smoked brisket! 
Our last two weeks in North America were spent in Manitoba, enjoying family, blooming lilacs and smoky skies. Amazingly, no graduations were attended.
