Graduation

You know the old saying, a journey of a thousand miles begins with one single step? Well, that journey started 24 years ago when he first stepped into his kindergarten classroom. Wasn't he a cute little kindergartner?

And along that thousand mile journey there are a lot of mile markers. You feel like your school years are almost over when you graduate from high school. For Dan, it was the half way point.

My sister-in-law just ran the Boston Marathon and she wrote about how the crowd's cheering and the thoughts of her family waiting for her at mile marker 20 and at the finish line kept her going. This journey requires a support group as well. Here was Dan's as they took him to Ricks College.

I was waiting for him at mile marker BYU. It was fun finishing this leg of the journey together.

And then the journey took us to San Francisco to attend dental school at UCSF. And his fan base grew.

But I have always been his #1 fan.

And now that journey has finally come to an end. The destination has been reached!! Dan has graduated (for the last time) from The Ohio State University with his Masters in Orthodontics. He is now Dr. Dan Walton DDS MS. But he says he prefers to just be called Master:) Here he is with his fellow graduating residents: Nate Springer, Matthew Ames, Nathan Helm, Sahira Kortam, and Tisha Randall. I am so happy Dan had such a great group of residents to associate with everyday. They all got along so great and everyone at OSU is sad to see them go. And now they are all officially orthodontists! So go out there and give people beautiful smiles! :)

Not the best family picture, but the only one we got.

Graduation was on Saturday, March 27, 2010. There was a nice dinner and ceremony to congratulate the 6 graduating residents.

Here he is receiving his diploma and going down the line shaking hands with his professors.

One of the ortho assistants put together this hilarious video. Check it out here.

Oh, and how do you get little girls to sit quietly through a long graduation program? IPods, of course.

I was doing pretty well emotionally through the whole thing until Laura and Abby came up to me at the end with huge tears running down their cheeks. Then the sob fest began as we said our good-byes. They were all moving out of town in the next few days. Emily Springer, me, Laura Ames, and Abby Helm. Emily was actually being induced the next day with her 3rd baby and I was being induced the day after that. Funny timing, eh?

The guys did better on the emotional level. Although I know they are going to miss each other. Nathan Helm, Matthew Ames, Nate Springer, and Dan.

So we all vowed that we would have a reunion - AAO 2012 in Hawaii baby!

Dan, I love you so much, and I hope you know how proud I am of you. I am so lucky that I got to be a part of this journey with you. And now we begin a new journey. I can't wait to see where it takes us!