Catching Up: Coco's Visit and Katie's Graduation

In June, Coco came to visit and to celebrate my graduation! Ben had a wonderful time with Coco, though we managed to only snap a couple of photos of them together. Here's one:

Coco is constantly taking pictures, and Ben became obsessed with her "cammer" (camera). So Coco bought him his VERY OWN digital cammer. Here he is taking the first of hundreds of shots of his own fingers. But he loves it and it's been fun.

What I love most about visits from friends and family are the photos we get of ourselves! We rarely remember or take the time to get photos with Mommy and Daddy with Ben. So here are a couple, the first of which I absolutely love (I know, I'm not mother of the year!):


Here we are reading one of this household's favorites, Llama Llama Misses Mama. A classic, for sure!


I (FINALLY) finished my Ph.D. after (WAY TOO MANY) years in UCD's English Department. I'm happy to be done, and I was so glad to have my mom and husband there to celebrate! We left Ben at home with our friends the McReynolds, which proved to be smart since the ceremony went on for almsot 3 hours!


But we came home to find homemade banners decorating the yard. They say "CONGRATULATIONS Dr. Rodger, aka Mommy, aka Katie!" It was a very cool thing to see. And they were, of course, decorated by the kids.

This cake proved to be the richest chocolate I've had in my life. It actually kept me up that night due, I believe to the caffeine content! But soooooooo good!


Our little family...