After Graduation

AFter graduation, we played around with Ashton's family.  We went to the zoo for the last time and we even caught one last baseball game.

These 2 really are friends.  

We saw these cute little mustache birds in the aviary board walk.  I just loved them!

Juliette watching her "mingos"

JJ swinging in the gorilla house

Dex with a shark.  He was sad to say goodbye to them. :(

JJ saying goodbye to her upside down jellies.

These are the cookies I made for the BBQ we had with everyone.

Then we went to the new Werner Park to watch the Omaha Storm Chasers.  It was pretty fun.

Dex was patiently waiting to catch a ball the whole time

Crayson even got him a foul ball!

Ashton took Dex and Crayson geocaching, and Dex came home with these flowers.  They were my first flowers picked by my little boy!

Another Part of May-Graduation!

Well, he did it!  He graduated!  Our 4 years are up and he's done!

His parents and youngest brothers were able to come down for the event.  We enjoyed having them there and celebrating this occasion with them.

To start, we did a final BBQ with the crew.  We did a lunch.  Kevin's parents were able to join us, and it was wonderful meeting and getting to know them.  We gave everybody a book:  "Things My Friends Said at Lunch".  It is just their blog of conversations they wrote down, that we "Blurbed" into a book.  It was a hit.  For the next little while, quotes from it would pop up on Facebook and there were quite a few pictures of them reading it.  It made our hearts glad :).  Unfortunately, we didn't take any pictures of our last BBQ together :(

The next day was the hooding ceremony.  It was much more intimate than the other big graduation and was fun to get to see them hooded.  It was kinda like playing "Where's Waldo"  trying to find Ashton and the crew.  Don't worry though, we found "Waldo".

Ashton and Dr. Tolman. 

 Ashton did an academic rotation with Dr. Tolman.  The timing of that rotation, was such a blessing.  It came after his difficult hospital rotation, and was just what Ashton needed.  Ashton really liked Dr. Tolman, and would come home each day saying, "Man, if we stay here, Dr. Tolman and I would be great friends."    At the graduation, Dr. Tolman spoke very highly of Ashton as well.  I had the head on picture that Crayson took, but I can't find it anywhere :(

Ashton, Ashlee, and Kevin

Ashton and Ashlee

The gang minus Bailey.  

Ashton, Tiffany, Emily, Ashlee, Kevin, and Julie

Our family:)

Then for a fun comparison:  

Dex and Alex at the beginning:

 Dex and Alex at the end.

Ashton and his cool hood.

 

Our family and the Bourne's.  We add a couple kids to the mix and everyone has grown.

Ashton and his parents.

The next day we had graduation with the rest of the colleges.  It was much bigger and not nearly as personal.

All of his hooding and diploma receiving was caught on video, not on a still camera.  

Once we left graduation, Ashton was no longer Mr. Ashton Jenks.  He is now Dr. Ashton Jenks.  Crazy!