Weekending- Three Rineer Grads!

Linking up with Holly and Sarah for Hello Monday

It is finished. High school is finished. The end of an era... For better or worse! The past two school years, Alyssa has only gone to school for half a day each school day. She did CCP (College Credit Plus) from home through Sinclair Community College online which gave her high school and college credit. High schools in Ohio offer CCP for "free" (eg the tax paying denizens of Ohio pay for this- which we are so of course, we paid for this!!). Through the course of the four semesters that Alyssa did CCP, she earned 24 college credit hours. The best thing to me, though, about CCP is that it enabled her to be home more and in the school building less time than she would have had to be had she not done CCP.  The less one spends in an institution, the better (in my opinion!) so I would have encouraged this program had it not resulted in her getting any college credit! Anyway, one of the points of sharing that is that I think it made the prospect of her not being in school any longer a little less dramatic since she was only physically in a school building three and half hours a school day the past two years. Nonetheless, graduating from high school is major milestone.

Had a definite photo fail... the guys weren’t in any pictures from before graduation. Alyssa had to be at the arena super early and caught a ride with a friend. The guys weren’t ready yet when she left so they aren’t in any of these pictures. Then it was so chaotic and hot after graduation. (The students actually picked up their diplomas outside? (Odd.) Alyssa had to turn in her gown as well at outside afterward and she was so hot that she took it off right away.)

The ceremony was at the University of Dayton (UD) arena. Over 500 students graduated so the school needed a large facility!

The ceremony was fine but getting out of the arena was not for the faint of heart (cars and people everywhere!). We had a grad party to attend that started not too long after the ceremony ended. We were just going to eat there but then we didn't know exactly what the food situation was going to be at the party, so we had a late lunch at Spaghetti Warehouse in Dayton. Then ten-minute wait for a table turned into about forty but it was worth it! We ate in the "trolley car" that's inside the restaurant... and couldn't sit at one table but we were close. 

In the parking garage

Sourdough bread- Yum!

They use half alfredo/ half marina sauce on their manicotti which is what I got. So good!

The only pic of Alyssa and Donnie from the entire day :(. Good thing it is a good one!

Had to do a photo recreation. The restaurant had changed the location of the settee within the lobby since 2015 when this photo was taken...

Once home, we were only home for only about half an hour before we left the house to go to one of Alyssa's best friends grad parties. It was great seeing Emma and her family at her party.

We couldn't stay long because we had to go to Avery's grad party that was also on Saturday. We had a great time there celebrating our favorite non Springboro grad :).

Some of the cul-de-sac kids! We've known all of the 18+ represented her for eighteen years and the younger ones, their entire lives. The kids grew up together, going to birthday parties, celebrating NYE, 4th of July, Memorial Day but mostly our kids did the mundane with these kids like play outside with them every day when the weather was nice that has resulted in these kids being such good friends.  We parents spent a lot of time together, mostly when the kids were younger but still do, some, to this day, hang out outside and shoot the breeze. We've bragged about our kids, complained about our kids, shared wisdom, recipes, gave advice, listened to advice, heard all about try-outs, tournament and competition results, vented about teachers and school policies we don't like, shared neighborhood "talk" (eg. gossip) and the like. Thankful for all of our neighbors turned friends!