Donald Follmer's College Graduation

Bank of Mom and Dad is now closed.

Saturday was the big day. Donald Graduation from Southern Oregon University. It was a beautiful day in the valley. Partly cloudy and temperatures in the low 70's. There were about 800 graduates.

Ann Curry was the commencement speaker and I got to meet her after the ceremony. Ann is from Ashland and is a hometown girl and returned to share this moment with the graduates.

We got to the stadium about 3 hours early to get a good seat. You'll notice we are in the front row and we had our noisemakers. Notice in this photo the proud mother, grandmother and grandfather. All set for this great day. Behind them is Darnell and Josh. They are Donald's friends from New Jersey and were his graduation present from Mom. Donald wanted his long time friends with him at graduation. We were all so proud of Donald's accomplishment and wanted to be there with him.

With Donald is his girlfriend Kara. Both a delight and so happy together. Those couple of years of study dates paid off.

More on the party tomorrow.

Layouts of Donald Follmer

Oregon Trip and Donald Follmer's Graduation

My trip to Oregon started with a very painful and long trip to the other coast. Having worked first thing in the morning and then the drive to Tampa and then the flight to Oregon and then the drive to Ashland from Portland it ended up that we were up for 24 hours. Ugh. We did get some sleep on the airplane and in the car so that helped. We checked into our hotel about 5:00 am our time but 2:00 west coast time. But we were there.

The first day we had lunch with Donald and his friend Darnell and that was wonderful. After a nap it was off to dinner with Mom, Jackie, Rich (Jackie's ex-husband), Calvin (Donald's grandfather and Darnell. We had the best Carbinerra (Sorry Naomi, yours is actually better). The a first happened. Jackie and Rich were deciding how to split the bill and Donald piped up and said how about he pay the bill. This is a first and I had to document the occasion with a photo.

Mom was cold after dinner and he let mom wear his hockey jersey. I loved the 60 degree weather. So refreshing after our 90 degree weather. Ashland is built on the side of a mountain with parts in the valley but the better part of the town in on a hill. More pictures to come.

I've also want to share some of the layouts I've done of Donald in the past 6 months. I'll put them in another post.

Joshua Haley Chiszar

I've been thinking a lot about blogging lately. Facebook has taken over a lot of our communication but it really does not give us room to really talk about what is important in our lives. Blogging gives us time to explore our feelings, our life and those we love. So I am going to get back to blogging and sharing.

Today I would like to wish Joshua Haley Chiszar happy birthday yesterday. I thought about this all day and did not really know until today what I wanted to say to this sweet adorable little boy. I want to say to you that I love you now and always. Even though your parents will not let me see you because of money that can not stop me from loving you. I miss seeing your sweet face and your very cute smile. I think of you often. I have tried to send you cards and postcards but I am sure your parents have kept these from you and have thrown them away. But know I am always here for you and you can always call me or email me because no matter what anyone says I am still your grandmother and always will be. One of these days you will google yourself and find this message and maybe we will be able to reconnect. So happy birthday and enjoy your summer. Love you.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone and have a really hippitty hoppity day.