Thomas's graduation!

Thomas officially graduated with his Ph.D. in August, but since UT doesn't have a summer graduation ceremony, he walked in the fall graduation on Thursday. We had a wonderful day celebrating this huge accomplishment!

Thomas's mom and dad came out for the ceremony, and his uncle Geoff also flew in from Boston, unbeknownst to Thomas! What a great surprise. My brother and sister-in-law from Atlanta also came up for the day with their girls. It was so nice to have everyone there together.

In the early afternoon, we had a small get-together at our house for friends and colleagues to drop by and say congratulations. We had a lot of fun -- especially Jamie, once his cousins got there! I once again made Thomas's favorite carrot cake. If you haven't made this cake, seriously, you must. It ALWAYS gets tons of compliments.

 

Jacob and Finn, cake buddies.

our friend Mandy holding our niece Savannah

 
 

carrot cake coma?

cousin time! Jamie was blurry in 100% of pictures.

The actual hooding ceremony was later that afternoon. We got there just in time to get some pictures beforehand.

 

 

 

 
 

 

I love this picture! Jamie was just 2 months old when Thomas started his PhD. It has been his whole life, and they've gone through it all together.

Jacob was not interested in keeping the cap on!

 

 

We had 7 kids with us at the graduation, and I have to say I was impressed with how well they did! Jacob had the hardest time, but we managed to keep him entertained with snacks, Thumbkin, and climbing between the rows. He didn't fuss nearly as much as I expected.

I had never been to a PhD graduation before, so I didn't know how exactly how it worked. For the master's students, it was still a normal graduation--walk across the stage, shake hands, walk back down to your seat--but for the doctoral students, their advisor walks up with them and actually puts their hood on them as part of the ceremony. It was pretty cool.

 
 
 

Dr. Thomas Lecaque, with his advisor, Dr. Jay Rubenstein

Afterwards, we said good-bye to Mark & Sarah, took the boys home and left them with babysitters, and then went out to dinner with just the adults. We went to Lakeshore Tavern, which we had heard good things about but never gone to before. We really enjoyed it! It was a great end to a day of celebration.

And here are some pictures from the rest of Grammy & Papy's visit.

 
 

 

 
 
 

making the bûche!