The Hooding Ceremony

Hmmm. There's a lot of photos here. I guess I didn't learn the "less is more concept." Oh well, feel free to skim.

The Hooding Ceremony was at the Gesu Church on Marquette campus downtown, and for me, it seemed appropriate that it was held in a religious setting. For the effort, resources, and sacrifice that have gone into getting a little bit of fabric to hang around John's neck and a little piece of paper, it really felt that at least part of graduation needed to be a celebration spiritual in nature.

It really was a beautiful church.





Also, I am quite sure that our wedding has less pomp, circumstance, and ceremony than graduation weekend. Wow. We went non-stop from ceremony to ceremony for for about sixteen hours. Hours and hours of sitting and clapping. I'm glad the hooding ceremony was first. It really was a neat experience to see John's Dad all dressed up hooding John.











We were pretty out of our heads at the time we made the decision to take our kids to EVERYTHING, although I'm glad we did. I know that Hailey will remember much of the weekend, and the girls have been such a part of this dental school experience, and have made sacrifices too, that it just seemed right for them to be a part of it all. And they were wonderful and well behaved, and did a great job. They have been making up for that good behavior this following week though. . .













Well, they were good almost the whole time.


This is Hailey "condeucting" the organ music.

And lastly, may I just say, how stinkin' proud I am of John? I know "stinkin'" isn't the best adjective to describe it, but I needed to choose one where where you could imagine me squinting my eyes, stomping my foot, and unintentionally spitting just a bit while I said (or wrote) it, because I am that proud.











This has been a long four years, and I've watched John work so hard. We've both grown so much from this experience, and grown closer because of it. It was almost weird to share the celebration of a goal that has been so close and personal to our daily lives with so many people. And although our dental education years are not quite over yet, I think I can speak for John when I say it's so nice to be graduated and move on to the next step.

And a big whoohoo to being done!

But of course I have more pictures, because this was in fact, a two day event. . .