Graduation Season

It's graduation season, and despite having been out of high school for six years, I still have graduation parties to go to. On Saturday, my neighbor had his graduation party. He was the youngest in the family, and I still remember when they first moved in next door. He wasn't even 2 years old yet. So it was very odd to see him graduating high school and heading off to college. His brother, who is a bit younger than me, is done with college and getting married next year.

All the guys that live on my street are going (or went) to Mankato State University in Minnesota, including my brother, Josh, Ryan, and Travis. Josh is a part-time police officer looking to become full-time, and Travis is going to be studying law enforcement, planning to be a police officer as well.

Yesterday, we went to Mike Do's graduation party. He's also going to go to Mankato to study law enforcement. Mike's relation to me is a bit tenuous - I think he's my third cousin. We have the same great great grandparents, our great grandmothers were sisters, our grandmothers were cousins, our parents were second cousins(?), and we're third cousins. Anyway, this resulted in me seeing a lot of slightly distant relatives, many of whom I haven't seen since I was younger. My grandma's sister was there with her kids (my mom's cousins). I really like the idea of staying in touch with your extended family, so it was really fun to see them.