Paul's Graduation

After four years, Paul was graduating from college, so we loaded up the van and made the trip down to Pensacola Florida. Along the way we decided to make a vacation of it and spend a few days on the beaches of north-western Florida. It was to be a 5 day vacation; the first half spent with my family and the second half with just us. The schedule would be:

Tuesday: Drive to Pensacola
Wednesday: Paul's graduation and visit with his fiancee and family
Thursday: Jet-skiing and boating
Friday: Relax on the beach
Saturday: Naval Air Museum and drive home

After working a half-day on Tuesday, we started our trip down to Pensacola. We arrived after 7:00pm and went straight to our hotel: The Baymont Inn & Suites. It was right next to the University Mall or rather what was left of it. In our absence, the mall had been closed down. Only J.C. Penny's & Belk was still open for business.

Wednesday was an exciting day. Unfortunately, Stacy and the kids did not get to go to the graduation. The College provided nursery, but you had a to have one adult for every kid and they each had to go to different nurseries. Since we only had two adults and three kids (besides the fact that it didn't sound fun anyway) Stacy elected to stay at the hotel and clean up while I went with Mom and Dad.

Pensacola Christian College hadn't changed much, except the students looked a lot younger than I remember. We found Crystal & Paul lined up in the Crowne Centre waiting for it all to start, and with our smuggled camera we took a few pictures of the happy students.

The graduation was great. There were over 650 students graduating and everything went very smoothly, except for the one student who, while giving his speech, got the tassel stuck in his mouth. Once the graduation was over, it was picture time. Everybody lined up and we took as many pictures as we possibly could.




After the graduation, Dad and I helped Paul load all of his stuff into the car and it was off to the Olive Garden for some fellowship with Crystal's family.
Then it was time to go on our beach vacation...