Finally, I am able to blog about graduation day. The ceremony took place on May 23rd at 8PM in the evening. Yep - that late in the evening. The ceremony was held outside in the school's football stadium - and we live in hot, humid Georgia. So, a daytime ceremony wasn't going to happen.
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Let me preface by saying that the graduation ceremony went beautifully. Very, very few hiccups. But, there was a LOT of worry, planning and communicating (on the part of everyone) to make that happen. The kids practiced for three days before graduation and they did an amazing job.
I may have mentioned in the past that Briana's high school is located on a campus which also has an elementary school and middle school. The campus LITERALLY has one road going in and out of it. It's been like this for years and the county has done absolutely NOTHING to rectify it. Well, except build more houses of course - which is why there were 734 graduates graduating from Bri's school. And there isn't a ton of parking available - not for thousands of people at least. Once the parking lots filled up, ceremony goers were told they would have to drive to a park that was 10 minutes away and shuttle in on buses to the campus. I wasn't going to do that, so I had to make sure my family got a parking spot.
So my stress level of "how are we going to get over 700 graduates and 4000 family members/friends in and out of the campus on one road, find parking and actually get to see our kids graduate?" was at like a thousand percent.
Each student only got 6 tickets for the ceremony. And if it rained (which added to my stress level BIG time too), the ceremony would then get moved into the gym and then only two people would be allowed view the ceremony in person. It was enough to make my head explode.
Graduates had to get to the school super early to make sure they wouldn't get stuck in traffic on that one road trying to get to the high school. Bri drove over super early on her own and ate dinner in her car to make sure she didn't get stuck.
Thank goodness it didn't rain that evening. There was a threat earlier in the week, but it dissipated. The next hurtle to get over was getting to the campus and parked. My brother-in-law drove my sister and my parents to my house. Doug and I then drove with them over to the school, so Doug and I could drive home with Briana after the graduation was over and my family could head straight to their homes. We left my house 3 hours before the ceremony started - super early. No joke.
We got to the campus and the traffic was already starting to back up at 5:30! We did manage to get parking at the high school and volunteers were driving golf carts around to help people with walking issues (like me - still battling my heel issue) get to the stadium.
I will say - the school did an amazing job keeping it all organized.
We were let into the stadium at 6:45pm and we picked a great spot to see Briana. Once my family was finally seated, I was able to breathe again. It was a bit warm at first, but then things did cool down. I can't imagine trying to do this in the middle of the day. Bri told me that their practices were really warm.
The ceremony started promptly at 8PM.
So, let me back up quickly and talk about our day leading up to the ceremony.
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Of course, I had to decorate the house for my sweet graduate...
The graduation girl was from my parents.
We tried to relax a little bit that day, but it was difficult.
Then it was time for Briana to head over to the school...
I couldn't believe it was actually graduation day.
We took a few pictures before she left the house...
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My family arrived at my house soon after Briana left. Then we loaded up in the car and headed to the school.
The long line of cars heading into the school behind us...
The golf carts ready to shuttle (Bri snapped this pic before the chaos)...
The line heading into the stadium...
Our tickets!
Bri's friends...
The 2024 graduates...
It was almost showtime.
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We got settled in our seats (I brought stadium seat cushions for all of us so we could be more comfortable sitting all that time)...
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Finally, it was showtime...
Bri spotted us right away and waved as she walked in... 
The valedictorian (his speech was wonderful as well as the salutatorian)...
It was finally time for Bri to get her diploma...
Walking back to her seat (I love that she waved to us)...
It did take a long time to get through all those names. The honors students got their diplomas first, so Bri got hers quite quickly. The whole ceremony took about two hours.
My girl...
Then the kids walked around the field to "Viva La Vida" by Coldplay and "I'll Always Remember You" by Miley Cyrus.
It was then time to toss the caps...
And then it was over. There was a beautiful full moon that night...
Proud family...
What an amazing night.
I did see one woman start yelling pretty loudly at security because she got there late and there was no seating except at the back of the field. And there was a rude family about two rows down from us who stood up to yell and hoop and holler for their kid and in the process the family right in front of us missed seeing/hearing their kid get his name called for his diploma. They were ticked and I don't blame them. The rude family also brought a ginormous bundle of balloons which they pulled out of a bag slightly before the ceremony was over - obscuring the view a bit for me and other people. Just ignorant. Sigh.
But for my family overall, it was a great experience. We heard Bri's name get called, she waved to us several times, we had a great view and we got to take pics with her on the field.
After the ceremony, Bri had to go back inside the school building to grab her actual diploma. Yep - the covers handed out were empty! The school was worried about possible rain and them getting wet, so the diplomas were sitting inside the building the whole time. Heh.
But she got it...
I will post next about the graduation dinners we had for Briana to celebrate. She was an absolute NO to having a big grad party, so intimate dinners were planned instead.
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