Abe's BYU Graduation, a Piglet, and Hints of Other Things

Abe graduated from BYU in their ACME program at the end of April. (The ACME program is a fairly intense route you can choose to take if majoring in math. It stands for: Applied and Computational Mathematics Emphasis. Abe often just tells people he majored in "applied math". What that actually means, and what he actually knows, and has researched, and done ... I can explain only about as well as six-year-old Starling might. But he could tell you! [And then you could continue to be just as confused as you are now.])

We had all the kids with us but Penny (who had something she could not miss with final preparations for her last play of high school underway). Gayle even bravely joined us in our full van.

(It always feels an enormous shame to have one child missing from what might have been a complete family picture.) 

And we had more than just Abe's graduation to be excited about (though that was certainly a very big deal). 1. Mike was picking up a piglet. (Well, two piglets. Sadly, one died the very next day. It was my fault. I insisted that if he was going to make us get piglets, we take the tiny runt of the litter as one of them--even though it looked nowhere near as healthy as the rest. I was right that the kids would love the puny thing. They did! But Mike was right in his suspicions that it might not survive to adulthood. Sad.) And 2. We were meeting someone who will very soon be a permanent part of our family. But shh. No more about that. You might spy an unfamiliar face in these pictures, but I'm saying nothing more until there's a very official announcement to be made.

For the briefest moment as Abe, in the blue cap and gown he borrowed from Daisy so he wouldn't have to buy one, stood, confidently, to walk towards the stage (and onwards from there towards graduate school and the beginning of a family of his own [hush! I said we aren't mentioning that in this post]), I had a bit of a flashback. Abe was five and driving off with Mike to his first day of kindergarten. He was clutching a little paper with a list of questions and worries that Mike promised he would make wait to make sure Mrs. Kilby answered before leaving.)

Anyway, congratulations to that boy/this man. A very happy day.