Graduation

This is a very busy weekend for us as it is Brandon's graduation from high school and also all the Memorial Day Weekend stuff we are doing for the American Legion.

Sunday was graduation day for Brandon.  He asked me to take his senior portraits for him, which I was glad to do.  We went out to his aunt and uncle's place along the river.  This would be Ramon & Cecelia Rios.  It was a very nice setting for portraits.  Since these were Brandon's he got to choose what he wanted.  He kept it very simple.

Anyway, back to graduation day.  The ceremony was held at 2:00 pm at the High School Gym.  Gone are the days when parents get a certain amount of tickets and have to figure out which family member doesn't get to go to the ceremony.  Now it is first come first served.

Doors to the school didn't open until 1:00 pm, so we were there early.  We dropped off our contribution for the BBQ at his other grandparents (Chuck & Hilda Kopp) place.  They just live a block from the school.  Got our parking spot then just walked over to the school.

We sat in the bottom section of bleachers at the top, this way we could lean against the wall.  It is first come first served seating.  We could have sat in chairs right up front, but we wanted to save those for parents of the graduating class.  We could see better where we were anyway.  It was hard to get photos as I was bumped all the time by the woman next to me, but I did manage to get a few.

The sound system wasn't the greatest, hard to hear the speakers but at least they kept it short.  The ceremony itself was about 2 hours (not bad).

Once the ceremony was over we then made our way to Chuck &  Hilda's place.  We did manage to find Brandon outside in the line, but again very crowded.  We had a couple other of our students graduate, so we congratulated them also.

It was mostly family at the BBQ, the weather held out(at least it didn't rain).  Brandon's baby sister Mariah had a hard time once she realized that this is real and Brandon is really going to leave for college.  She cried on my shoulder and was down on herself for not spending enough time with her brother.

Brandon will be going to Montana State in Bozeman in the fall.  He wants to major in astrophysics.  He will also be playing drums at college, so we will have to go to Bozeman to see him play.

Here are some of my favorites photos that I took of Brandon for portraits.