Family & Friends: Mateo Graduated!

He did it!  Mateo's a high school graduate!

We had a fun filled last few days with family & friends in town to help celebrate Mateo's high school graduation.  We are so proud of this guy.  He finished high school as one of the 21 Valedictorians in his class.  Wow, so impressive!  

On Thursday night we went to Senior Spotlight, an awards night for select Seniors.  Mateo received his medals for Valedictorian, Honors and cords for PCC Dual Credit.  It was so fun to watch all the kids receiving recognition for all of their hard work. 

Medals & cords all ready to be worn to Graduation.

Friday for the Seniors was a day of fun.  They had an awards assembly, graduation practice with a pizza party and then the Seniors loaded onto buses and went and visited their old elementary schools.  We have four different elementary schools in town.  

I got teary eyed (still do) at the thought of them returning to the place they began their school careers.  Mateo said it was pretty cool.  He got to see former teachers (who also shed a tear, seeing "their babies" all grown up).  I was able to see a couple photos from the day.

Saturday was Graduation Day.  Here are the six of us (Mateo's fan club, lol) in the stands, waiting for the Seniors to arrive.

(Nice job with the selfie, Granny)

I wish I could post videos on here.  It was really cool to see all of the Seniors enter the gym.  The Valedictorians got to enter first, so Mateo was easy to spot.  

Not my photo, just a nice group shot of all the graduates.

Some speeches were inspiring and some were funny.  I definitely teared up a few times.  The Valedictorians all took turns reading the names of the graduates as they came down the stage and received their diplomas, so we got to see Mateo up at the podium as well.

The traditional throwing of the hats once they announced they had graduated.

We got to grab a few photos outside with the grad before heading to his party.  

Mateo with Papa & Nona

Mateo with Granny

Mateo and his proud dad, Chico

Rose took a photo of me taking my traditional selfie.

The selfie.  :)

Mateo liked this photo of Jaxon not wanting to take a photo with him.  Typical...

Mateo standing in front of the Valedictorian wall.  They all get their photos taken for the wall.

Mateo's "Honors" Diploma.  Pretty fancy.

It was a great day.  So many people came to celebrate with Mateo at his graduation party that afternoon too.  I'll have to do another post just for that.

If you've made it this far in the post, thank you for sticking around.  I'll be back soon with more cards.

Ciao for now!