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We spent this weekend at my sister's graduation in Syracuse. It was really nice, all of the family on my mother's side was there including my cousins who live in Ohio (not related to my father's side of the family who all come from Ohio).
It was very much a marker for that side of the family. Generationally the family is defined as the "three sisters" (my mom and aunts) and the "four cousins." At my oldest cousin's graduation in the early 90s my sister was complaining how boring graduations were and so we counted up and realized there were 8 (high school and college) graduations on that side of the family and Melissa was going to have to sit through most of them before it was her turn. (Grad. school graduations are optional.) So this is the last cousin graduation. We did the traditional presents, an afghan from my grandmother (although if Melissa gets married she may do another), and a Melissa photo-album.
[For college graduation my cousin does a big photo album with pictures of the graduate throughout his/her childhood. My cousin does most of it, she even solicits pictures and memories from my dad's side of the family, but other people, mom, aunts, etc do specific groups of pages with the pictures and memories from their collections. So it's photos and hand-written captions. It's pretty cool. My sister's was neat because it had a lot of the same pictures as mine (especially these neat black and whites my dad took and developed in our basement when we were little) but different arragement and captions. There were also some family history pictures I had never seen before like my mom's graduation from nursing school and my grandparents ID photos from when they worked at the mine.]
Now the cousins are older, and in the extended cousins' picture there are seven of us (eight with Melissa's boyfriend). Again with the exception of a wedding it may be the last non-holiday event we're all together for. It was also really nice because it was the first time that we had been with my mom (and my cousins with my aunt) on mother's day since we were kids. It was also my cousin's 30th birthday so we celebrated that too.
Basically the weekend was a lot of waiting and eating. We went to the engineering college's convocation on Friday where they read out Melissa's name and the huge university graduation in the Carrier dome on Sunday where there was mostly marching and standing. Saturday we went out to eat at this really good Japanese restaurant, we got sushi recommendations from my cousin who traveled to Japan last year and then had stirfry that they made right in front of us (all the seats were around a stovetop and the chef did neat things with the knife and spatula, so it was entertainment as well as dinner.) Sunday we had a "picnic" (it was rainy and cold) in my sister's apartment and then went out for dinner at Pastabilities (the name says it all.) My sister and I also went shopping and she power-shopped me into a pair of shoes for Chris and Erin's wedding as well as two bathing-suit tops (I just need to find bottoms now.)
It was good family time and only two days. My parents and sister are gong to Ohio to see the other side of the family, but I have so much work I couldn't make it.
It was very much a marker for that side of the family. Generationally the family is defined as the "three sisters" (my mom and aunts) and the "four cousins." At my oldest cousin's graduation in the early 90s my sister was complaining how boring graduations were and so we counted up and realized there were 8 (high school and college) graduations on that side of the family and Melissa was going to have to sit through most of them before it was her turn. (Grad. school graduations are optional.) So this is the last cousin graduation. We did the traditional presents, an afghan from my grandmother (although if Melissa gets married she may do another), and a Melissa photo-album.
[For college graduation my cousin does a big photo album with pictures of the graduate throughout his/her childhood. My cousin does most of it, she even solicits pictures and memories from my dad's side of the family, but other people, mom, aunts, etc do specific groups of pages with the pictures and memories from their collections. So it's photos and hand-written captions. It's pretty cool. My sister's was neat because it had a lot of the same pictures as mine (especially these neat black and whites my dad took and developed in our basement when we were little) but different arragement and captions. There were also some family history pictures I had never seen before like my mom's graduation from nursing school and my grandparents ID photos from when they worked at the mine.]
Now the cousins are older, and in the extended cousins' picture there are seven of us (eight with Melissa's boyfriend). Again with the exception of a wedding it may be the last non-holiday event we're all together for. It was also really nice because it was the first time that we had been with my mom (and my cousins with my aunt) on mother's day since we were kids. It was also my cousin's 30th birthday so we celebrated that too.
Basically the weekend was a lot of waiting and eating. We went to the engineering college's convocation on Friday where they read out Melissa's name and the huge university graduation in the Carrier dome on Sunday where there was mostly marching and standing. Saturday we went out to eat at this really good Japanese restaurant, we got sushi recommendations from my cousin who traveled to Japan last year and then had stirfry that they made right in front of us (all the seats were around a stovetop and the chef did neat things with the knife and spatula, so it was entertainment as well as dinner.) Sunday we had a "picnic" (it was rainy and cold) in my sister's apartment and then went out for dinner at Pastabilities (the name says it all.) My sister and I also went shopping and she power-shopped me into a pair of shoes for Chris and Erin's wedding as well as two bathing-suit tops (I just need to find bottoms now.)
It was good family time and only two days. My parents and sister are gong to Ohio to see the other side of the family, but I have so much work I couldn't make it.
