school's out forever

friday afternoon was the doctoral hooding ceremony. it began with a parade (grant is looking up at the camera; his advisor is behind him waving):

hazel and lucy:

i made sure they looked up for the important bits, like the hooding of dr. adamson by dr. deconick:

we headed to the college of humanities reception and took many pictures. below is grant with dr. henze, a member of grant's dissertation committee, and sylvia, the department coordinator:

 with dr. mackie, another member of the committee:

 with matt, a student of grant's:

with dan and johnathan, fellow graduates:

and lots of family photos:

saturday was commencement and conferral of degrees. the weather was surprisingly nice with low humidity and a cool breeze, but we were sitting facing the sun:

amazingly, i was able to spot grant in the crowd of graduates:

and i nearly burst with pride. commencement was well done. the keynote speaker was helene gayle and her speech was very good:

dr. adamson & dr. trammell:

with their advisor:

 and more family pictures:

posing by the sculpture po-um (lyric) by mark di suvero:

and posing by the piece monumental barn owl by geoffrey dashwood:

finally, encapsulating the entire weekend, a piece by hazel r. a.:

@ the airport

saturday afternoon, my parents and a couple siblings made a connecting flight in houston, and we drove up to see them. while we waited for them to get through customs, we played on the escalator:

until the security guards shooed us away. (not really.) then we sat and waited:

soon enough, there they were!

hazel and lucy were giddy with joy to see their aunt mary alice. dad and grant talked about boring stuff:

mom, esther and i spoke of much more important things, like robert downey jr. and vampire diaries:

esther proved herself a true niece-spoiler by giving the girls some tasty chocolates (which they immediately consumed):

and then we were treated to a dinner of smoothies, chocolate muffins and pastries:

it was wonderful to see family and even more wonderful to stock up on delectable english candies:

thanks to my frequent explanations that no one would be coming home with us, the girls handled the good-byes really well . . . until we reached the car. hazel started sobbing and saying how much she loved them. lucy sighed sadly and said, "i just wish mary alice was real." hopefully we'll have a nice long visit soon. [hinthint]

whoa-oh-oh-oh, camouflage

on leap day, grant took the girls outside to play. what are they looking at?

peek-a-boo! can you see it?

there it is:

lucy wanted a better look:

which scared the little critter into doing this:

well played, lizard.

after grant gave up trying to capture it, the kids got down to business:

a quick change-up:

the end.

almost a week with grandma

brace yourselves, folks. this is going to be long . . .

grandma came to visit us on feb. 22. we had some belated birthday cupcakes ready for her (hazel gets credit for that. she wanted to eat cupcakes surprise grandma):

they were vanilla with chocolate buttercream. tasty.

wednesday morning, grant took the girls and grandma to a park (i stayed at home so i could attempt to finish my book club book for the meeting that night [it's an excellent book. i highly recommend it]):

a monkey on the monkey bars

a monkey with hair!

hazel takes the reins

self-portrait #2

self-portrait #3

a monkey plays in dirt

 saturday, we decided to dazzle grandma with the alligator park:

first, was lunch:

then it was on to the main attraction:  

unfortunately, due to the rainy, chilly weather and a noisy water pump, the 'gators were scarce. after our first sighting, the only animals we saw were birds: 

hazel spent her time complaining about how she was "soooo tired and just couldn't walk any more":

lucy spent her time breaking the law by picking every wild flower she saw:

in hopes of spotting another reptile, we struck out onto a new path:

and we did see this guy:

but i'm pretty sure it was the one from before.

by this time we were wet and cold so we headed indoors to pet a baby 'gator:

a king corn snake:

hazel wowed the ranger by knowing that a snake's tongue smells

and a tarantula:

*shudder* yes, it was real. and alive. at least she didn't want to keep it as a pet. ewww.

on monday we headed to the zoo. first to ride the train:

and then to visit the animals:

the meerkats. (grandma treated us to lollipops)

grant's favorite bald eagle. (no, grant. you will never live that down. mwahahaha!)

 we were impressed with this ankole's ability to use it's horns to pull branches down to scratch it's back.

a maned wolf

eventually we made it around to the african forest (the only part of the zoo grandma hadn't seen):

drums:

chimps:

and a couple of ostriches with the giraffes:

who weren't getting along:

somebody wasn't happy that day...

the lions were much more affectionate:

and finally, a flock of flamingoes:

 that night grandma unveiled a delightful surprise:

snow! or fake snow, rather. start with powder:

add water and presto chango!

diaper guts! i mean: snow!

the girls had a ball playing in it and it was amazingly containable, thus easy to clean up.

tuesday morning, grandma watched hazel and lucy while grant and i hit up the temple:

awww!

 and once we got home it was time to take grandma to the airport.

we were all sad to see her leave (even oliver, who only took 4 days to [kind of] warm up to her). thanks for coming to visit us, gail! we loved having you here and only wish that you could have stayed longer.