Herriman High had a graduation parade for the seniors on the morning of graduation. It's weird being part of all these public school things suddenly, after feeling so apart from them most of the time! (Seb has been in public school from 10th-12th grade.) For the parade, the seniors just get in their cars and drive (or get driven) slowly around the block to the high school. Some cars were sort of decorated…but mostly not. Ha! I thought it was going to be dumb but we went anyway because my kids might like it. And it was fun! Surprisingly fun. Lots of the seniors threw candy (which I don't think they were supposed to, but oh well) so the kids were super excited about that. And there were lots of police cars and police motorcycles, which put Ziggy in heaven.
Bubbles
The parade cars were going so slowly and the street was so small that we could wave and talk to the students in each of them. The kids waved and said "hi" to everyone. It was cute.
Yay, finally Seb
Giving out some sort of weird mugs. Why? No one knows.
Ziggy looks wistfully after the last Police Car
We also had the end-of-year Track "Banquet" that last week—which was most definitely NOT a banquet. More like a meeting. A long, boring meeting held in the lunchroom. Sam and I kept a tally of how many times the coach said "at the end of the day" and "at a higher level," which made the time pass moderately more quickly.
I have to admit, though—these end-of-year ceremonies always make me nostalgic in spite of myself. I can't help feeling sentimental about all the time that's passed, the memories, the lessons—the ways Seb has changed. Running has definitely been a big, and definitive, part of his high school experience.
These good friends. Luke, Seb, Tayshaun, Noah, Kayden.
Seniors
Here's Seb with Charly at State Track. He brought her these flowers.
Somewhere in this week of graduation was also Seminary Graduation. We didn't get any pictures from that, but Sam did draw this picture while we were there, which captures the spirit of the thing rather well. Can you spot Seb…?😄
And then, the actual graduation! Abe didn't have a high school graduation (he went straight to BYU a year early) so it's been twenty years since I've been to one! I thought the school did a good job with it. I liked the procession around the track as they started. And it was fun that the kids got to sit by friends rather than alphabetically.
They got through the names of the 700 seniors pretty quickly, considering. They had it all very smoothly choreographed. I liked the look of all those red caps and gowns on the football field too!
Seb going in for the hearty handshake
(When I said it went relatively fast, I didn't mean ACTUALLY fast. It was still slow enough that Daisy and Junie had time to make this masterpiece of "Seb" art, which they presented Seb with afterwards.)
But there were fireworks when it was all over, which was so fun!
Cute friends. I remember how lost and sad I felt those last few days of school. I was excited for what was coming next, but it just felt so strange to know I'd never see most of these high school acquaintances again. It seemed so…final. It was scary. I remembered those feelings, watching Seb and taking pictures of him with his friends.
Good things are coming for him, though, I know it. And he graduated! Not something I felt 100% sure would happen at every moment this year. So hooray for that.
And one more bonus picture I took during church just because I couldn't resist.
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