Graduation

Taryn got her GED.  It wasn't easy either.  She took the test a few times before she passed it.  It was HARD.  We had to pay for a special math class so she could pass that part of it but she did it.  It used to bother me that she told people that she dropped out of high school because she didn't.  In my opinion she did it the hard way.  

We lived in Southern California when she was in high school.  There were race riots and a lot of discrimination there.  After getting slammed up against her locker too many times by ethnic kids I decided to home school my children.  They weren't safe at school.  People threw rocks at Christian my youngest.  It went way beyond bullying.  It was dangerous.  So we did it ourselves.  

When we moved to Littleton Colorado from Moreno Valley California Taryn tried her senior year at Chatfield High School but only lasted a few weeks there.  It was too difficult for her to adjust to the social aspect of the environment.  Everyone had established friends and she was never very good at being the outsider.  She made friends okay but didn't take the first step in that regard.  So we tested out of school and she went on to work a job at Walgreens while she figured out what she wanted to do in college.  I wanted her to have the graduation experience so we got her a cap and gown in her favorite color with a tassel for the year she got her GED.  It just happened to be the same year her younger brother Christian graduated too in 2009.  I took them both up to Red Rocks and did some pictures of them together.


They were always really close.  I ruined the pictures in my camera from Christian's graduation so we had to re take them anyway.  So it worked out great. I was so proud of both my kids.  I knew they were headed for bright futures.  She felt silly about doing the whole cap and gown thing but I insisted she do it because to me it was important to have the memory of it.  Like getting married and having a wedding.  If you skip the wedding you don't really "feel" like you've gotten married.  It takes away some of the specialness of the event.  I wanted her to have that just like Christian had it.  I think she like it too.  She looked so beautiful.