A New Chapter In Purple & Gold: Stephanie's College Graduation

This past Saturday marked a big milestone for us and my family — my daughter, Stephanie, graduated from JMU and is now entering the next chapter in her life. Today we're excited to share some of our favorite photos from the event along with a little background on why it was such a special day.

As her dad, of course there was a mix of emotions — mostly just filled with how proud I am of Stephanie, even more proud I'm her Dad and just how quickly time passes by. It's surely a cliche, but it seems like just yesterday she was running around as a toddler jumping from rock to rock at the river with a big grin on her face, the same grin she wore all day at graduation.

It was also a meaningful day for the Vidra side of my family, as Stephanie is the first in my lineage to graduate from college. As I've mentioned here on the blog before, I went straight into the electrical field fresh out of high school, eventually working my way into management for an electrical distributor for a fortune 500 company before embarking into this newer field of full time writing & blogging. All of this is to help give a little background into just how proud I am of Stephanie, all of her hard work and well deserved achievement.

Stephanie earned a Bachelor of Arts from the College of Health and Behavioral Studies with a degree in Psychology. After the ceremony, everyone headed back to the apartment where Stephanie and her best friends over the past 4 years lived near campus:

So what's next for Stephanie? Mary and I couldn't be more thrilled that she'll be living with us over the next year while getting her feet wet in a new position at The Fasion School here in Richmond. She's only got a week off from college before beginning the new job and over the next year, she'll be making the call whether or not to apply to graduate school and generally keeping the both of us in line, ha. So, you'll probably be seeing a bit more of Stephanie over the next year and if I had to guess, we'll probably be embarking on a room makeover more suited to her style in the coming weeks. We're also planning a graduation party here in Richmond for extended family and friends closer to the end of the month, so watch out for more on that front.

Brandon (my son) who you see in the above photos finished his first year at JMU and will be the next to graduate in 2017! Couldn't be prouder of these two.

Thanks for sharing in our good news, a lot of times we like to record these family moments to keep as an archive to look back on, and it means so much to us that each of you care to follow along too.