Repentance for my neglect

Dear Followers, I know I've been neglecting you, but it has been two whirlwind days o' fun and excitement and absolute exhaustion! The big event for which we came to Provo, the graduation of our baby girl, Miss Tara, took place on Thursday and Friday. Thursday was the big ceremony for the entire university. I'm not sure how many graduates there were, (around 6,300) but BYU has a student population of around 32,000, so you can imagine how many there actually were. I didn't think I would get emotional about it, but when the graduates were asked to stand while their degrees were conferred on them, well, the sight of all of those people made me kind of lose it. It was just so inspiring. I kept trying to find Tara in that sea of faces, but I never could. And you can imagine the fun everyone had trying to find each other after the ceremony!! But of course, with the help of cell phones, we did find each other, and here is a picture of our graduate.

The only food story of the day was our lunch, before the graduation, at this great Brazilian grill called Tucano's. We got together with the Dickens family. They actually live just a couple of streets away from us back home in Fairport, and it's pretty funny how we sometimes have trouble getting together in Fairport, with life getting in the way -- but we can somehow manage it all the way across the country. Besides, Lynne said she wished she were going on this food journey with me -- now she had her chance! We were also anxious to see their daughter, Maren, who is Tara's friend and one of my second daughters, and her husband, Jordan, who live in Utah. The Dickens are some of our favorite people -- they just seem to get us, which is no easy feat! Anyway, on to the food. What a blast. A huge buffet of all kinds of salads, soups, potatoes, pasta -- even beef stroganoff. I had been here once a couple of years ago, so I knew how to work the system, but Jordan made a point of telling the Tucano's virgins to not load up on salad and to wait for the meat to come around! (I made a point of telling everyone not to eat the quail eggs, because they really are disgusting. ) The meat is brought around on huge skewers. The waiters carve off pieces of the meats to the upraised plates of the diners, who then chow down and wait for more. 

There is garlic sirloin (Tara's favorite), chicken, something called Pequena which was more of a filet mignon, barbecued pork and even beef brisket so tender it was falling apart. They also brought around whole pineapple which had been cooked on the skewers and even chicken hearts. Pineapple, yes, chicken hearts, no freakin' way! Everything was, as you can imagine, excellent -- and what a fun dining experience! I mean you're sitting there eating meat and then they just keep bringing you meat and you just don't get tired of it!! You just keep saying "Oh yeah, I gotta have some of that" and that goes on for about an hour and you laugh yourself silly through the whole thing!

But the best part of the meal was watching Maren putting it away. She's just this tiny little thing and I truly believe she has the ability to eat the entire BYU football team under the table. And then, just when we had emptied our plates, Maren decides we have to have chocolate cake! Cake is Maren's favorite food anyway, but I couldn't believe she'd be able to eat more after the meat gorging fest we had all been through, but she said "It's for the whole table!" Well, some of us did, ahem, partake of the biggest slice of chocolate cake I have EVER seen, but I honestly think that she and Jordan could have polished it off with no problem.

And, of course, half an hour later, I was ready for a Dairy Queen sundae. I am truly pathetic. Only it wasn't so good, the strawberries tasted, well, artificial. I should stick to Dilly Bars and cherry dipped cones.

Again, no dinner -- how could we after that? As a matter of fact, after the ceremony and the pictures, the day would have passed in kind of a blur, but for the fact that our dear friends, Debbie and Steve Ledingham, had called earlier to invite us over to their house for the evening. Now, we have known them since before their first child was born -- and he's now married! 

They also have a daughter just about the same age as Tara, and another son, and everyone was there to greet us and really, to make us feel at home, as they always do. We only get to see them every few years, but it always seems like we just saw them yesterday. Debbie said she wanted to make a special graduation treat for Tara, and Debbie likes any excuse to make angel food cake! 

rarely (as in once) make angel food cake, so this was fine with Tara! Debbie cut the cake in three layers and made up some whipped cream with pineapple and coconut to ooze out of the layers. It wasn't until it was almost gone that we remembered that we hadn't taken a picture of this lovely creation. So we decided to take one anyway:

Ah the memories we have made!

Side note: Kevin and I were married on April 23, 1983. In a million years, we never would have dreamed that on that same day, 26 years later, we would be watching our daughter graduate from college. Kind of neat, huh?

It's bedtime. Tomorrow I will write about the second graduation ceremony (the convocation) and our food, fun and family experiences of the day (Friday).