pomp and circumstance. or, that one time we thought mum had the swine flu, my car broke down, and olivia graduated.

{ the graduate poses with commencement speaker + spontaneous poet Joey }

In a stroke of what can only be called genius, Olivia's taking her high school walk down Disneyland's Main Street USA this year---which meant we got to celebrate family-style tonight in our own little take on the ceremony. Complete with white robe, gold tassel, and requisite lei, Olivia gave a most inspired and inspiring Valedictorian speech (all quotes attributed to that ever-poignant Anonymous), which Joey followed up with something about wallets being green, blue, red, or white and a magic show involving a lot of hopping across a blanket. It was, all said, quite the best graduation I've ever attended.

Except that, in the two hours before the party, my mum's friend called to tell her that she has swine flu and maybe that's why my mum's been feeling a bit sick, too? And so the party took a tailspin as dad drove her off to the hospital while we quickly killed all original plans of a homemade dinner full of finger food and went for Spaghetti Factory instead. After which I dashed up to my Stake President's house to sign off on my visa papers and came back to my car half a minute later to find it dead. (And oh, did I mention the monsoon rain?) Naomi leapt into action with an emergency supply of chocolate and a large HELP fingered into the fogged-up window, but in the end we had to leave the car on the hill and high-tail it back home for the actual graduation ceremony. By that time (hooray) mum's test had come back negative and so life was back to somewhat normal until mum sliced her finger open with a chicken knife.

But that's a story for another day.

In the interim, one especially special thought from tonight's commencement:

I hope your dreams take you . . . to the corners of your smiles,
to the highest of your hopes, to the windows of your opportunities,
and to the most special places your heart has ever known.

{ happy graduation, liv. xoxo. }