CRASH!!!!!!!!! ALYSSA CRASHED THE GRADUATION!!!!!

We went up to Plattsburgh to move Alyssa out and to have her 'crash' graduation. Being that she'll be student teaching down here for the spring, she didn't want to go back up there for a May graduation being that all of her friends have already graduated etc. She asked if she could 'walk' at the Dec one and they said no. Education majors can't because if they're not doing well at student teaching, you get pulled and have to repeat it. They then wouldn't even be graduating in May. Plus, Scott graduates the same day in May. We were going to split up with one going to Alyssa's grad and one going to Scott's grad. She wants to go to Scott's to take part in all the parties for the families (crawfish boil, party at the pres house etc). So anyway, I wrote a letter to the pres asking him if she could walk and he wrote back that she can't. The vice pres called Alyssa in and told her to listen to his words carefully and he said " you know how the kids purchase the cap and gown from the bookstore and they fill out the card with their name one it..." He basically told her to just go and 'walk'. So that's what she did. I was a wreck thinking she'd be caught!

We started our trip on Friday Dec 12th. It poured here the previous night. Our first problem was that major roads in Westchester County were closed because of flooding. Good thing PJ knows his way around! The next problem was the ice storm from the previous night in the Albany area.

The pics don't show it well but it was so pretty with the sun glistening on the ice. We always stop in Clifton Park (a few exits past Albany) for gas. We got there and the station was closed! We drove around the town and everything was closed. We realized that there was no electricity. We went up one exit and still everything was closed! We had 1/8 of a tank left and were a little nervous. Without knowing how far north the outage went, we turned around and went south, back to Albany and got gas there. The station was next to a Stewarts where PJ loves their milk shakes. So we got milk shakes. It was so cold out and holding those cups just froze your hands. So what do you do... you wear your gloves so you can have your milk shake!

Graduation was fun. It was 9 degrees! I felt so bad for the girls in dresses and heels!
It was nice because she got to sit with Maggie.
Just before going up...


SUCCESS!!!!!

Alyssa handed them the card with her name on it that read

Alyssa ORKIE Zukowski!! (Scott's nickname for her!)As a gift to herself... Alyssa got a tattoo of L.I. in sunset colors with a star for Wantagh. What was she thinking??!!

The way home the ice still didn't melt from the trees.

The sunset was really pretty. The pictures don't do it justice. The weird thing was that there was a beam of light that looked like it was coming from the ground and heading toward the sky.

That's it! It was good to get home to an unusual 60 + degrees!!!