A Trip home in May
31 May 2014
Wiley
In mid-May, as planned, we both flew home for our daughter-in-law Tesia's graduation, and the award luncheon for our youngest son, Sean. Like everything else at Key Largo, it was easy. The dock-master, Brian would keep a good watch on Les Miserables while we were gone. It is a half mile walk to a Enterprise Rent-a-Car, and not much more than an hour to the airport in Miami.
The luncheon for Sean's Crimestopper Award was impressive. The mayor of Arlington Heights spoke, then the chief of Police, then Sean's commander. All of them praised Sean's dedication and initiative. Then the annual Crimestopper award was presented. Followed by a wonderful acceptance speech by Sean. Merry and I were treated like important visiting dignitaries. Afterwards, we went to a tavern where police like to go, and all of Sean's fellow officers were there to celebrate. The award includes a $500.00 check, which by tradition the annual winner puts toward the bar-tab for the celebration. We got to meet a lot of Sean's fellow officers, and they were very impressive people, exactly the sort of folks you would want to have as police officers and detectives. I felt like I was in an old Hill Street Blues episode and had a great time!
The graduation ceremony at NIU was also impressive. Tesia worked full time as a nurse while going to NIU for her BS degree. While (as you would expect) it was a large ceremony (I'm going to guess that there were over a thousand graduates) as far as we were concerned, the whole thing was just about our beautiful and amazing daughter-in-law. Her parents came down from Minnesota for her graduation, and her aunt attended as well. We all went to an Italian restaurant in Geneva afterwards to celebrate.
I accomplished some things in our prairie garden while we were home. Our friends, Nancy and Terry brought over a couple of yellow coneflowers, which they dug up from their yard for my birthday. I planted these, and got the filter system for the pond running. It felt great to be home, but before we knew it, it was time to go to the airport and fly back to Florida.
While we had a wonderful year, the two special events in May were the highpoints!