He's got the diploma in his hands!

It has been one busy week here, full of adventures.  Bob graduated on Monday! In-laws and parents came in Saturday, Sunday was convocation, Monday was commencement and the diploma ceremony, Tuesday was touring some parts of greater CT and Wednesday everyone went home yesterday.  I'm just now starting to get my mind wrapped around what I need to get done for this coming Sunday (no rest for the weary). 

I'll post my sermon from this last Sunday, as well as some updates on how Pentecost went with all the doves and ribbons and streamers later but first I have to play proud spouse! Bob graduated with his Master of Arts degree from Yale's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in the Near Eastern Languages and Civilization Department in the field of Assyeriology.  And if that isn't a mouthful enough to make someone impressed, he also graduated with a 4.0!

We were blessed with a beautiful weekend/week to celebrate other than a few sprinkles Monday morning it was a gorgous on Yale's campus.  And we had a beautiful time under the trees of old campus for commencement. 

 

 Two hard years of work and now diploma in hand (written in Latin)

Graduation was wonderful, but you can tell Yale has done this a time or 308 times before.  Everything was very organized and actually went quite quickly for the amount of students who were graduating. 

On Sunday, we attended the Graduate School convocation.  The speaker was one of the first females to graduated with a PhD in the sciences from Harvard.  Her speech was about having a love for learning, being accepting of all people to learn and that some of the greatest discoveries in scholarship happen by chance.  And being aware of the number of people and time, award winners were announced at commencement, but only those present were actually announced and just their names were said, not their thesis/dissertation titles.

On Monday, at commencement, they had students stand by school and the dean of that school ask the provost to confer their degrees.   I really think it took longer to announce the 8 honorary doctorates than it did to award the few thousand bachelors, masters, MD and PhD degrees.  After the large commencement, we then broke up by school to receive diplomas, and at the Graduated School's diploma ceremony they announce the degree, and the names of those present who walked across the stage to receive their diploma. I'm glad they did things so quickly since we were in a large un-air conditioned building whose windows did not open.  Afterward, the grad school hosted a lunch of sandwiches, chips, veggies, fruit, etc.  It was a good thing too, since everyone was starving and the New Haven restaurants would have been overrun with people otherwise. 

For our greater CT adventures on Tuesday we took our parents on a winery tour.  The first winery, Haight-Brown, was closed :-( but it did have an interesting sculpture - Bob thought it looked like sperm.

At the second vineyard, Hopkins Vineyard, we ate lunch overlooking this beautiful view: 

And at the third, DiGrazia Vineyard, I fell in love with this porch:

I'm so proud of Bob and we've had a wonderful week with family but I'm also so glad to be able to sit and not worry about where to take family or when we have to be somewhere.  I'm also glad that Bob achieved such a great accomplishment.