Jesse's Graduation

 We were happy we could share Jesse's graduation day with him and Sarita and Stella. 

 The graduates from the business school all gathered together and walked to the area of campus where the main ceremony took place. Jesse was cute pushing Stella in her stroller!

 The main ceremony was really long. Thousands of people gathered in the quad area waiting for the graduates to show up, and then they were introduced one college at a time, and degrees were conferred as a group. There were no speakers at this, but a few hymns. Yale dates back to the 1700's, and they have a traditional way of doing this.

 Stella trying to sneak a toy from her friend.

 After the main part, we went over to the Business School for Jesse's diploma ceremony. This was a smaller group, and they had speakers, and each graduate received his diploma. They call it a "self graduation", because every graduate announces the graduate ahead of him. 

 Most guests sat on chairs on the lawn, but it was a very warm day and Jesse suggested we sit inside, upstairs where there were some benches and glass windows. That worked out very well and we were comfortable. 

 Stella slept for awhile, then watched through the glass with her friend, whose Dad was also graduating.

 Stella wore some traditional Japanese garb that Jesse got for her when he was in Japan for his internship.

 For the rest of the week, I got to spend a lot of time with Stella while others packed and got Jesse and Sarita's stuff ready to move. 

 She is going to miss her panda while their stuff is in storage. Stella loves soft things- especially all kinds of soft stuffed animals.

 She is very interested in dogs, but wants to keep a little distance. People at the park were happy to give her a look at their dogs.

 Fall is beautiful in CT, but spring is very green and beautiful too. It started to get very warm and humid while we were there, and it is a very unpleasant heat that made the back of my neck and hair wet and sweaty!

 Stella loves to watch videos of Jesus on the laptop. Whenever Dad had his laptop out, she would go over and beg, "Jesus? Jesus?"

 She wants to walk by herself anytime she gets a chance, but it's hard to get her to hold hands.

 Sarita spent two days in New York, having interviews with editors that her agent set up for her. It was a great opportunity for her, and good to get to do it before leaving the East Coast, but it was somewhat tiring for her during a busy week. Jesse took us to a museum one of the days she was gone and then we walked around campus.

 One last walk through the business building to turn in his locker key.

 The last few days were spent packing and cleaning. Jesse ordered some pods from U-Haul they used to store their stuff in- what was left of it after selling off a lot of it. Dad is a great packer and loader, so his skills came in very handy. Some friends came over Friday to help load everything, then Jesse drove the pods, which were on a trailer attached to a U-Haul truck, back to the U-Haul facility, where they will be stored until they know where to have them shipped.

In the meantime, they are in an empty house for a few days, saying their goodbyes to friends before flying out Wednesday to spend some time with us while Jesse continues to pursue job possibilities. He has some potentially good ones that may work out, but nothing solid yet. They think they'll end up in the Bay Area.

 We used Airbnb again, for our accommodations, and this one turned out to be pretty nice. It was the top floor of an old house and the owners lived on the floor below. There were old wood floors that weren't especially level, so it could throw you a little off balance!

 They had a pretty interesting back yard with all kinds of stuff for the kids to play on. You can see the chicken coop in the back too. 

This is a view from our window, where you can see the river in the background. When we had time to go for walks in the morning, we walked along the river and across the bridge.