In the middle of May, Dustin and I went to Little Rock to celebrate my cousin Josh's graduation. He graduated with degrees in Spanish and International Studies. He has one more class to go this summer that he will complete in Taiwan - taking a class in Mandarin. After that the world is his oyster... or something like that?!?!?! We know that he will be going on for his Masters degree - the complicated issue of where he will get his Masters is the question. Complicated because we all think he should come back home to AZ - and he thinks differently. He is throwing around the idea of going to school in Colorado, which would be absolutely fine by me. So much closer than Arkansas!!
We enjoyed our time in Little Rock much more than we ever expected. It is a beautiful city with a lot to do - and a lot of history!! Our weekend started out by visiting the state capital.
As you can see Dustin was not so thrilled that I made him take a picture next to President Bill Clinton's portrait. He was positive that I would post it on Facebook and make it his profile picture!! I am sticking to my promise that it would not go on Facebook and utterly embarrass him in front of all his conservative friends ;o)
The next day was Josh's graduation ceremony. I love the picture directly above. This picture is of my dad, his brother bill, and Josh and KC (my dad's sisters boys). This picture just makes me smile so much :o)
I didn't get any pictures from the bbq that happened that evening at Josh's house - but the memory will never leave me. After all of Josh's friends had left, it was just the "McFarland family". My parents, my dads brother and his wife, KC and Shannon, Josh, Dustin and I. We sat around telling stories of my Poppy and Nonny (my dad's parents) and my aunt Judy. We laughed so hard at times I was sure that I was going to pee my pants, and there were moments when I really wanted to cry because I missed all of them so much! But having such a wonderful family to share stories with made their memory even brighter. As the night grew on and we were all exchanging hugs and getting ready to go, the song El Paso by Marty Robbins came on. This was my Nonny's favorite song, and all of us knew every single word. We sat on the porch and sang together. It was as if they were sending us a sign from heaven that they had been watching us all evening long and were laughing and crying along with the stories too. Such a perfect ending to a wonderful day!!
The next day before we left back to AZ we did some sight seeing. Our first stop was to Little Rock Central High School. This is where the story of the Little Rock Nine unfolded during the civil rights movement. Stepping foot directly into such an amazing piece of history was almost surreal. We thought it was incredible that the high school is still an operating high school that is attended by more than 2,000 students.
We went to downtown Little Rock and attempted to see the "little rock". But apparently it had been moved as they were re-doing the area for tourists. I'm not completely sure I got that one right - but regardless downtown Little Rock was pretty cool. After that it was back to AZ!!
No comments:
Post a Comment