Wheaton Graduation and Grad Party

The graduation service for the summer students was held in the Billy Graham Center Rotund.  This room is very ornate with really pretty banner hanging down, as you can see from the pictures below.  This is a kind of farewell service for those graduating.  They each have a chance to get up and talk for approx. 2 minutes giving thanks to those that supported them through the program and also giving a brief what the future looks like for them.  

We were both excited at his finishing his MA!

This is a picture of all the graduates.  Will is holding his son who was born after he and his wife completed their first semester.  So, Ezra was with them through it all.  

This is a few of the core people here.  Most of us joined and started the program at the same time.  The journey at times was rough, but we all made it!

 "The Castle"  Blanchard building makes a great background for a picture (below)!

These are our friends working in Vietnam.  Joshua became good friends with the guys and the girls are precious friends of Jennifer's.  We only see each other once a year though.

posing outside of the BGC

We just had to have our picture taken with the director of the TESOL program, Dr. Alan  Seaman.

 Excited to be finished!

Here's the grad himself looking good in the graduation gown getup!

Yippeeeeeee!  I'm finished!

Now for the party!  We all gathered at one of the apartments on campus and had a little party.  We had Chicago style deep dish pizza with salad and a cake with purposeful grammatical errors on it.  There was also a white elephant gift exchange for the graduating seniors only.  Below are all the pictures to show the amount of fun we had!

More than just people from our organization were there for classes.  We enjoyed sharing this time as they have gone and were/are going through the program as well.  It was a blast to get to fellowship with so many different people!

Joshua is enjoying his pizza!

Fun gifts all around!

This is the type of gift that just suites his personality and the fun that we were all having.

The grads with their new treasures

After the party we went back over to our apartment and Joshua opened his presents from me.  Of course it could not be a momentous occasion without legos of some kind!

I just couldn't resist getting this to mark the completion of his MA. 

This shows how many people attended classes with him this summer.  A great group of people!