Jon's Graduation

When I first met Jon in 1995, he told me two of his dreams were to attending the University of Alabama and go to law school. He thought those dreams were gone once he joined the Navy. But thankfully, he did enlist in the Navy. The 9 1/2 years served in the military helped him attain his dream of going to law school. His outstanding grades he earned while in undergrad helped him get his full-tuition scholarship for the University of Alabama and his military GI Bill helped provide half of our monthly income.

After three years of law school and countless hours and hours of studying, he is almost completed with his dream. I say almost completed because the month of July he will be living again at the law school studying for that evil bar exam for the State of Alabama. He did pass his MPRE, so he can ethically practice law in any state. And if he does not get a job that suits our needs as a family, well he is back to school in August for his LLM degree. The LLM degree is a degree program for a Master's degree in Tax Law. Yeah, not an exciting degree, but he still has time left of his GI Bill. Our thought is we rather have him go back to school and receive his monthly GI Bill, then lose half of our monthly income if he doesn't get a job. We are somewhat flexible on where we would like to move to. Jon doesn't like snow, so that cuts out a lot of cold states. Although, when he finishes the LLM program and he still doesn't have a job we will move to where it snows.

Jon's mom and brother came to visit us for a week and witness his hooding. The ceremony was not that thrilling. I am grateful that the law school conducts their ceremony separate from the rest of the campus. There were two other ceremonies that day with probably had close to 3,000 students in attendance. The law school probably had around 150 students walking the planks. Jay was relieved when I told him he could take a book to read.

After the ceremony, we went out to dinner at Hokkaido Japanese Steakhouse and ate some yummy food! Sunday after church we went back to the University to take pictures on the grounds of the University. It is such a beautiful campus, especially in the spring with all of the flowers. Most of the photos are on my Facebook page.

The Monday after his graduation, Jon, Betty, Tony, and Jay went to Memphis, TN to visit some house and car museum. I think driving that far to see a house and some cars is a little far, but they like the guy who used to live there. Unfortunately, they missed out on a good thunderstorm. Tuesday night before they left we all played Carcassonne together. I am excited I actually was in second place. Jon, as usual, won the game with all of his strategy methods.