Farewell, MIT!

I've always been proud of Jeremy. Proud to be married to a Naval Officer. Proud to be married to a man with intelligence and integrity. Proud to be married to a man that can easily be described as a loving and devoted father. But, I've never been as proud as I was yesterday. I don't like to brag ... okay, maybe I do a little bit ... but, I have to brag about Jeremy's accomplishments.

Yesterday morning, Lieutenant Commander Jeremy Thomas Leghorn graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering and a Naval Engineers Degree. Before the ceremony, his class of fellow naval officers had an awards ceremony during which Jeremy was awarded the Brand Award for having the highest GPA among all the Navy men. His cumulative GPA was a 4.83 on a 5 point scale ... at MIT! Pretty impressive if you ask me, especially considering that over the past 3 years, he would've had you believe that he was barely keeping his head of water in the sea of academic knowledge that is MIT.

Emma and I attended the MIT graduation with Jeremy's parents, Helen and Barry. The ceremony was outside on the lawn in front of the MIT dome. If you've ever seen a picture of MIT, you've probably seen a picture of the dome ... a large building with lots of windows, pillars and topped off with a large dome. It was a beautiful backdrop for the events of the day. I'd love to show you a picture, but in the tradition of Birnie family photography, my battery died as soon as the processional began. Oops!

Governor Deval Patrick gave the commencement address which was inspiring in the end, but if you were a Republican, as we tend to be, you had to check your political party at the door. Oh well. Still pretty cool to hear the Governor up close and personal.

Emma surprisingly did fairly well. She was a little squirmy and whiny at the beginning wanting to be down on the ground rolling around, but aside from the fact that she HATES grass, I didn't really feel that her silk Janie and Jack dress was really rolling-around-on-the-ground apparel. I knew it was going to be a long morning, so we sat in the back to allow for an easy escape if necessary. To my surprise, she fell asleep during the speeches, rousing periodically as rounds of applause erupted. During a longer speech, she fell into a deeper sleep, but upon the audience's applause, the startled, opened her eyes halfway, started CLAPPING right along with the crowd, and fell right back to sleep! It was funniest, most adorable thing I've ever seen. If only I'd gotten it on video!

When I graduated from Indiana University, our graduating class was so large (somewhere between 4,000 and 6,000 students), that individual names could not be called. Instead, each school was called, it's graduates stood up, moved their tassels to the other side and magically, they had earned their degrees. Diplomas would follow a few weeks later in the mail. At MIT, they called each and every graduate's name to come to the stage, shake hands with a school official and recieve their actual diploma, or in Jeremy's case, two diplomas. While the class was not nearly as large as mine, it was still A LOT of names. They called undergraduates and students with advanced degrees simultaneously which was a bit confusing, but prevented either group's families from having to wait for all the other group's names to be called. We couldn't see much, and had to watch the video screen, but when we heard Jeremy's name called, the four of us stood up and cheered, albeit quietly, for him.

After we saw Jeremy receive his diploma, we headed up to the room that had been reserved for the Navy graduates and their families. We were finally able to get a bite to eat and allow Emma let loose a little. We congratulated our friends and their families on such a big accomplishment, waiting patiently for Jeremy to slip out of the ceremony to meet us.

An officer and ... his little lovebug

'Daddy? This doesn't look like your Red Sox hat.'

Partners in crime - LDCRs Jeremy Leghorn and Keith Douglas and LT Joe Darcy

After a few pictures, everyone started filtering out, many with a long drive ahead of them to their new commands.

It was bittersweet. A celebration of 3 long years of hard work and accomplishment, followed by a sad goodbye to those we'd become close to. The saddest was the goodbye we said to Keith, Stacey and their kids, Hayden (4) and Mia (1). We've been with Keith and Stacey since we were in San Francisco. They moved to Virginia shortly after we did. And, Keith and Jeremy were accepted to MIT at the same time. We always knew our run would come to an end, but weren't looking forward to the day it happened. Stacey and I hugged goodbye, trying not to let the tears that were beginning to well up in our eyes show. We will miss them, but know that we will see each other again. Stacey's parents also live in Pittsburgh, so I'm sure our paths will cross many times in the future. Perhaps, we will even be stationed at the same ship yard in 3 years.

LDCR Keith Douglas and his beautiful wife, Stacey Douglas

With MIT behind us, we've closed another chapter in our family story. We've already begun working on the next chapter with the purchase of our first house and moving to a new state. We look forward to what comes next for us. Thankfully, we have until the end of July to spend time at home working on the house and being together as a family before Jeremy has to go back to work. So, now it's time to say ... Farewell, MIT!