It finally happened. Chris has officially GRADUATED from TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY! WHOOP! On May 14, 2010, at 9:34ish am Chris received his diploma. This was a day we had both been looking forward to. Here are the events that happened at his graduation.
A&M has finally wised up and decided it was too much to have a commencement speaker at every graduation ceremony. There were over 6000 graduates this May! They decided that on Thursday, the night before all the graduations began; they would have one big speaking event. For Chris's graduation, the speaker was: General David H. Petraeus, U.S. commander in the war against terrorism in the Middle East and Central Asia. This was really exciting for Chris…and much better than having someone like Obama coming to speak! We went at 5:30 on Thursday night to hear him speak. It was very interesting! He was a really good speaker.
On the day of the ceremony, Chris had to be there early and I wanted to get good seats, so we left pretty early. Well Chris got there on time, but as far as the seating goes, it was pretty crazy. We ended up on the second deck, only we were on the side that faced the back of the graduates as they crossed the stage. BUT we were able to get some great pictures!
We didn't know when Chris would be coming in, or which door he would walk through...all we had to do was wait and search the hundreds of graduates to find Chris! He is the one in the black graduation gown wearing black slacks and a white collared shirt with a green tie...does that help? After about 10 min we found him! Can you see him?
OH WAIT..there he is!
Since the commencement speaker was the night before, things went by (relatively) fast! Here is Chris right before he went on stage. He is telling the announcer (which had an amazing voice btw) what his name was. Apparently, Chris told me later, that they checked to make sure he was actually Christopher Collin Cooper like 7 times before he made it to the stage!
NEXT IN LINE!
Here is Chris accepting his diploma...thanks Julia for taking these (& all of the) pictures!
(We ordered some other pictures of the graduation and I will post them when we get them!)
CHRIS GRADUATED!
Once Chris had graduated, there were still over 1/2 of the graduates left. He decided to leave early to let celebrating could begin! Thanks to everyone who was there to support Chris during his big day!
Chris with the BandO, ClaireO and BearO
My Dad, Sarah, Me and Chris (my grandpa came down too, but he was unable to make it to the ceremony)
On mine and Chris's way home, we went to get his diploma framed. Myra's was having a special where she could frame the diploma in 1 hour. After we dropped the diploma off, it took about 15 min to get to our apartment. We hadn't even gotten back long enough to change clothes, before she called us and said that the diploma was ready! So I jumped back in the car and went to pick it up!
I love it! and more importantly...Chris loves it! It looks so nice. One of the reasons that he chose this one, was b/c of the coin with the A&M crest in the bottom of the frame! Needless to say, if she is still doing the same style when I graduate...there will be two just like this on our wall!
After everyone oohhhed and awwwwed over the diploma, it was time to celebrate! Chris just wanted to grill steaks and chill at our house so that is exactly what we did. As most of you know our apartment is tiny so we set up some tables outside to eat dinner. I was really worried about the weather, but luckily the rain held off until we had everything cleaned up.
Thanks to everyone who helped with the food! It was EXCELLENT! We had steaks, baked potatoes, rolls, and corn on the cob!
The whole group...
For dessert we had watermelon, Chocolate delight, and homemade butterfingers ice cream!
A couple days after, we took some more graduation pictures! Thanks Julia for letting us keep your camera for a couple more days!
Chris Cooper, Fightin Texas Aggie Class of 2010!
The proud wife!
The proud parents!
The proud graduate!
Chris I am so proud of you! You worked so hard (especially this last semester) and finally reached your goal! I love you! YOU ARE THE BEST! WHOOP and such!
