2009 Top Ten: #10 Rick's Graduation in San Jose

Congratulations Rick!

He wanted a photo with palm trees,

I made it look like his hair.

Mark's brother, Rick, graduated from San Jose State University with a Masters in Human Factors - that's not the actual name, but it's about creating products that are more user friendly for us dummy humans. Mark's mom is all about family, so she planned a weekend road trip for everyone to go out to the graduation. I thought this was crazy at first, and it was, but it was so much fun at the same time!

We had Craig, Carol, Leslie, Addie, Mark and I in Carol's mini-van, the Sly's: James, Holly, Shaylee, Ammon, Callie, Hyrum, Emma, and Alayna in their suburban, and Carrie and Marcie flew out - they're the sane ones. So we drove to Reno on Friday and stayed the night then went on to San Jose on Saturday. We actually got there a few hours before graduation started. This is what we did:

Wating for the ceremony to start and of course Mark's mom had her famous video camera with the spotlight.

Proud Parents! The Slys were a bit tired after the LONG drive

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A flower along the way

We went to China Town and San Francisco the next day, Sunday. There just happened to be a parade, or maybe they do this every day? Also, it was FREEZING cold this day and no one brought warm clothes, we all thought California would be warm in May.

Of course we needed to eat some "authentic" Chinese food while in China Town. I played with the color accent mode of my camera while we waited.


They have a four story Ross in San Francisco! This was one of the best moments of the trip :)
Then it was off to Lombard Street and the Golden Gate Bridge. I didn't take this photo of Lombard Street, mine didn't turn out from inside the van.

Rick's final project! We all like to joke that we own part of his masters - Marcie owns the most becuase she edited all his papers, I own some becuase I helped him with the illustrations on his poster.

We figured out that my camera could take up to ten photos on the self timer and you can change how many seconds are in between each photo. Great new game! The only rule is that you have to make a different pose for each photo!

And then we drove straight through from San Jose back to Salt Lake on Monday.