Edumakation

You read that right---the Thompson's are totally educated!! Scott and I just recently graduated from Ole Miss with our Master's degrees. As Brian McCoy would say, "We are your MASTERS!!"

A few years ago, I decided to quit my miserable job to really concentrate on Graduate School. I enrolled (and was accepted!) into the University of Mississippi's Counselor Education Program and after LOTS of hard work I finished my program. Scott worked really hard, too, as he allowed me to enroll full-time so that I could finish sooner. He truly was such a supporter in every form of the word and was there encouraging me the entire 2 years. When the end was in sight for me, Scott had a change of pace with his program. He had started his Master's program in Journalism many years ago (no need to be specific!) and when he realized I might graduate before him, he suddenly became much more motivated! Regardless of what pushed him to finish, I was super proud of him, because those last few months were really tough for him.

I was really excited that we both graduated at the same time-it definitely made it more fun for us and for our families! Graduation was truly a celebration around our house. Our families gathered together for the ceremony and then had a nice lunch with friends at my parents' house afterwards. Because it was Mother's Day weekend, we were both so happy to have our moms share in our celebration.

Prior to the ceremony, we were invited by Susan and Tom Meredith, our dear friends, to join them at a lovely brunch. We did not realize we would be visiting with all of the VIPs for the ceremony!!! We even got to meet Shepard Smith (sorry--no photo op for that one!), who was the keynote speaker. He was an awesome speaker and really engaged the crowd, which I'm sure you can imagine if you've watched Shep at work. If I can find his speech online, I'm going to add it to this post because it really was neat.

Here we are with the Merediths and Coach Nutt

Coach Kennedy with us prior to graduation

This is our hero, Chancellor Robert Khayat

Not only were our parents and siblings here for the grand event, but the Merediths, who are my second parents, came to Ole Miss just to congratulate us on our degrees. Mr. Tom and Mrs. Susan are wonderful people and have loved on me for many, many years. They have shared their wisdom, faith, love and friendship with me as I have moved from Oxford to Tuscaloosa to Kentucky and back to Mississippi. They are pretty important to Scott too, as he has grown to really enjoy their friendship and guidance. I was so touched to have Mr. Tom (who is the Commissioner of Higher Education for the great state of Mississippi, but is my Mr. Tom) personally present me my degree. I was very honored, because he is also the recipient of the Most Distinguished School of Education Alumni from the University of Mississippi. (I am sure I butchered that award's name!!) Thank you both so much for joining us-I cannot tell you how touched I was and forever will be.

After we both walked, we met back up in the Grove and took lots of pictures, as you can see! Then we went back to my parents to relax and enjoy time together.

We're goobers!!!

Not much time for relaxing though, because I have a REAL JOB and Scott is looking into pursuing his Ph.D. (Did I mention how proud of him I am?!) Before long we will post more about our next steps...