The time has arrived! Wellesley College Commencement 2013! Adele and I arrived at our hotel just after 6:00 AM, just time enough for a nap before heading over to the Wellesley campus. Lucretia had gotten up and out earlier to head over to meet up with Gina and to take care of a few things. They came back for Adele and me and we all headed back over to the campus for the Baccalaurate Celebration at 2:00 PM in the Houghton Chapel. That's Gina in the emerald beanie in the center of that group. They were all senior members of the a Capella groups. It was a warm afternoon, in the low 90s. Every so often we caught a breeze blowing across the chapel. After the celebration we headed over to the Lulu Chow Wang Campus Center for the President's Reception. Lots of delicious sweets!!!
We headed back to Gina's room and pitched in to start the packing. Before long we headed back to the Houghton Chapel for the Baccalaureate Concert. Gina had two numbers (A Simple Song from Leonard Bernstein's MASS, and The Music That Makes Me Dance from Funny Girl) as the final performer before the choir closed. Gina brought down the house! What an amazing voice!
Then . . . back to the dorm to do some more packing!
Friday morning dawned sunny and warm. We headed back over to the campus so Gina could take part in the preparation events and we could get our seats for the Commencement Exercises. Just after we parked the car in a little known spot, we saw this snapping turtle. Two security guards had just arrived to check it out. They were funny; they laughed, saying "who shall we call to take care of this?" They were going no where near it!
We then headed over to the Academic Quad. It was a hot day, 94 degrees, so we were sure to get seats under the shade trees scattered around most of the Quad. Linda and Louie and Raymond and Isabelle arrived shortly after we did and joined us as we waited for the Procession.
The Senior and Academic Procession seemed to go on forever! But finally, the addresses began. The Commencement address was given by Valerie B. Jerrett, Senior Advisor to President Obama. The reading of the names of the graduates was done in a brisk pace. There were about 600 graduates and it went quickly!
After the ceremonies we headed over to the reception nearby in a giant tent on the Chapel lawn. Long tables of a selection of fancy sandwiches and tables of desserts. We tried not to fill up too much since we made reservations for all of us at the Cheesecake Factory nearby at the Natick Mall.
And we Gabriels do what we do best! Mangia! After dinner, Adele and I rode back to Albany with Louie, et. al. Lucretia and Gina headed back to the dorm to finish up and load up the car for the trip back to Florida. We were a bit nervous about all of Gina's stuff fitting in the car, so I took two pieces of her luggage with me to bring on my Southwest flight back on the following Tuesday. Since I was flying back to Orlando to pick up my car, I dropped the luggage off at their home in Winter Park. The car was packed to the roof, but everything but the garbage can fit!
Lucretia and Gina stayed overnight at their friend Nancy's house nearby and headed down to NYC on Saturday to spend a few days with the Js and Rs. On Saturday morning we dropped Adele off at the train station so she could head down to NYC to also visit several days with the Js and Rs. It was the first time for them all to meet Red!
It was a beautiful time at the Commencement activities. It's hard to believe that Gina's four years there have ended!
No comments:
Post a Comment