Moroni's Graduation!

Abilehi came over this morning and helped me finish getting everything packed up and ready to go. We had originally wanted to leave by 8 am so that we could arrive in Orange Grove by 1 pm, but we didn't leave until 9. As luck would have it, though, The Liahona (our GPS) calculated that we would still be arriving by 1 pm! I guess the drive to Orange Grove is a four-hour drive instead of a five-hour drive like I had thought!

The drive to Orange Grove was fine. We sang, talked, and Alegria and Abilehi watched some DVDs. When we arrived in Orange Grove, I ate a little something and tried getting Alegria to eat, but she wasn't up for that. Finally, she and I went to try to take a nap, but Alegria was still not up for that, either.

So...when we finally left to go to Moroni's graduation ceremony, Alegria crashed so hard that even getting her out of her car seat didn't wake her! Luckily, my big, strong brother, Helaman, was there to help me carry her...sleeping babies are even heavier and we still had to walk all the way to the stadium from our parking spot and try to find seats in the bleachers!

Not even the blaring of the processional woke Alegria!



Poor baby! She's so exhausted from all of the traveling we've been doing lately!

What was funny was that Moroni wasn't wearing his glasses and we almost didn't recognize him as he was heading over to his seat!

Finally, Alegria woke up:

As you can see from her sweaty head, even though it was the evening, it was still pretty hot!

Since Moroni was ranked number 4 in his class, he was privileged to give the invocation:

Still trying to wake up:

After all of the speeches, the graduates in the band got to rejoin the band to play a special musical number:

Moroni is in the back playing the bass:

Here they're announcing the top ten percent of the class, of which Moroni is one of them!

Finally, it was time for Moroni to go and receive his diploma! He's going to Texas A&M College Station, with a major in Biochemistry:

Next was the recessional:



And then the graduates throwing their caps up in the air!



I was afraid the graduation ceremony would be too long and that it would be too hot and that it would be difficult to control Alegria, but luckily I was able to borrow a hand fan from Almalia, which kept me cool until it cooled down, the ceremony was just the right length (there were only about 97 graduates in total, I think, since it's a small school), and because Alegria slept at the beginning, she was groggy when she awoke towards the end, and was easily contained...especially with the help of Helaman! :)

Apparently, Almalia thought it was boring, though, and I found her listening to headphones as we were heading out.

And once everything was over, Alegria was intrigued by the bleachers and kept wanting to climb up and down them:

A few old friend of ours were there, too, as were their granddaughters, and the little girls thought Alegria was adorable and were drawn right to her and were being such good little friends to her!

We finally went home. Once back home, Alegria found a small traveling suitcase of Almalia's and proceeded to play with it and all of the markers and stencils inside of it:

Looks like it's almost time for bed! Alegria's putting one of Almalia's bears to sleep!

All in all it was a great day for a high school graduation and I'm so proud of my youngest brother, Moroni! CONGRATULATIONS again, Moroni! We love you!!! :)