Thursday, May 21, 2009

Congrats Graduates!

by Meghann on May 21, 2009

Congrats to the Class of 2009!

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It is definitely a different experience attending a High School graduation so many years after I graduated myself. After experiencing the post high school world, I wanted to grab all these kids and tell them it’s not over and that this is only a single step in their lives. There is still so much life to live and tonight is only a mild milestone in life.

I rushed out of work a little later the originally intended and quickly gobbled down a Chocolate Brownie PURE bar as I rushed to my parent’s house.

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It was nice to have all of my siblings together for the youngest’s graduation. Before the 7:00 ceremony we had an early dinner with just the 6 of us at our favorite pizza joint, Kelseys.

We started with the Greek Salad for 2, which is really the Greek Salad for 6 or more.

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I had a small serving of the Greek Salad.

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I grew up on this salad and it will always be a favorite of mine. :)

For our meal, my Sister and I split the Veggie Calzone. They brought it to the table already cut individually for each of us.

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I can’t remember the last time I had a calzone and after I ate this I remember why it had been so long. There was way to much cheese and not enough veggies. If I ordered this again I would tell them to go light on the cheese and heavy on the veggies. I managed to eat all the crust, pick at the few veggies inside and leave most of the cheese filling behind.

We made it to graduation over an hour before it started to make sure we got some decent seats. Because of the monsoon weather we have been experiencing the past week, the football field where the commencement was suppose to take place was completely flooded. The school then had to go to Plan B, where the graduates graduate in the school auditorium. Each graduate was alotted 2 tickets to the auditorium , while the rest of the friends and family could watch on closed circuit tvs in the gym or cafeteria.

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Sadly, my twin bro, sister and I were forced to watch the ceremony in the gym. Which actually was not as bad as we were predicting it would be.

The three of us spent the entire ceremony catching up, joking about the speeches, and counting how many times the poor girl sitting directly behind the ceremony picking her nose.

When it was my brother’s time to graduate this was as great of a shot as I could get.

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Fortunately my parents had great seats for the actual ceremony and were able to capture some pretty awesome shots with their fancy camera and long lens.

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My other siblings and I actually graduated from a different high school then the one my little bro graduated from tonight. It was a little tough watching him walk around in blue rather then the maroon and gold we use to proudly wear. THS was our school’s main rival! I guess it just goes to show you those peky rivals really mean nothing in the end. :)

Ben graduated from a relatively small class – about 300 – so we were lucky the ceremony lasted well under 2 hours. It was a flood of chaos waiting for the graduated to come out though.

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We were able to find my brother and take some family pictures.

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To celebrate the graduation we went to local diner for some Ice Cream. I ordered a small vanilla cone with a flavor shot of peanut butter.

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The Peanut Butter flavor shot was really interesting. It was a very light peanut butter coating painted on the side. I liked it, but wish it was a tad more peanut buttery.

Ben has now hung his cap and gown up and headed to Project Graduation to continue celebrating the night away with his fellow classmates. I still can not believe my little brother is officially a high school graduate. I am so proud!

I am staying the night at my parent’s house tonight and have to get up super early to beat traffic and make it to work on time. Not my idea of a fun time! I guess it’s the price we pay to celebrate with the ones we love. I better get to sleep now so I won’t be a walking zombie tomorrow.

Good Night!

{ 19 comments }

Graduation Memories

by Meghann on May 21, 2009

Part of the deal with being able to leave work early to attend my little bro’s graduation is I must eat at my desk while I continue to work, work, work for that hour. I am very spoiled to be able to go home on my lunch break and eat lunch in the comforts of my living. So on the rare occasion I must eat at my desk, I do not tend to complain. :)

This morning I took the time to put together a lovely meal.

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I went a little crazy while stuffing my wrap, luckily the aluminum foil is the perfect element to keep it from overflowing.

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In the wrap I had leftover Tofu, Spinach, Radishes, Tomato, Banana Peppers & Country Bob’s All Purpose Sauce.

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I tend to become obsessed with certain elements and try to incorporate them into all my meals before I grow tired of them. This week it seems to be in the form of BBQ Sauce and Carrots with Nut Butter.

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Sadly, I am all out of Almond Butter. *Sniff, Sniff* So, I dug into my fancy nut butter shelf and had a serving of 4 Nuts Butter for dipping.

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The 4 Nuts Butter did its job and made the carrots extra tasty. I seriously think I could have a full meal of carrots and nut butter, but I’m not sure how balanced that would be. ;)

Of course to balance the meal out I had the last serving of my Yogurt Parfait Pie.

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Yum, Yum, Yum! It was a wonderful lunchtime treat!

A couple of you were asking for exact measurements of the ingredients I used for the pie and honestly I am not great at measuring things out and tend to eye-ball it but with something as easy as this, its hard to go wrong with adding too much or not enough of anything. For the directions of what I used check out this post here and if you have any specific questions please feel free to send me an e-mail at graduatemeghann@gmail.com and I will be happy to address any of your Yogurt Parfait Pie Needs.

Before lunch I did have an assortment of Dried Fruit as my mid-morning snack.

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Memories…

I was hoping to do some sort of trip down memory lane where I posted some pictures of my own High School Graduation; unfortunately I graduated back in the stone age before digital cameras. All of the pictures I have from those fancy disposable cameras are not so hot.

It is actually hard to believe I graduated High School over 6 years ago! When I graduated, my little brother was in 6th grade and at the time I was taller then him! Do you know the incoming freshmen class is the class of 2013? I was class of 2003…. Ughhh….

Graduating high school was a great experience that I will always remember. Because of my last name I had front row seats and had a great view of all my friends walking across the stage. I graduated in the local community college gymnasium that was cramped and filled to the brim with proud parents, family and friends. I had worked very hard to graduate with honors and proudly wore my honors, honor society, & journalism cords that evening.

After graduation we went to Kelseys for pizza then headed to Project Graduation where I celebrated until sunrise with my fellow graduates. Does anyone else do project graduation? It’s this event the parents started back in the day where they throw a farewell party in the school that goes on until 6:00am for all of the graduates. It’s their way of preventing any out of control partying the eve of graduation. It may sound lame, but out of my class of 365 graduates about 300 attended, including all of my friends. We all had a great time and the parents do a great job of collecting door prizes, entertainment and TONS of food!

High School was great, graduating was great, but I will always believe College was soooo much better!

When did you graduate High School? Any special memories from that evening?

{ 54 comments }

A Semi-Dry Run

May 21, 2009

The clouds may have still blocked the stars and moon in the sky, but for a thankful hour this morning the rain subsided long enough for me to get a 5.35 mile run this morning. It was disgustingly humid and muggy, but damn it I finally got a decent run in this week. Hallelujah! I more »

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