Dr. Doug

Last weekend, I had the incredible honor of witnessing my brother getting hooded at The University of Texas at Austin. Doug, ahem, Dr. Henderson, is an incredibly talented individual and truly one of the best at what he does. He has always made our family so proud and there's no doubt he will have many more accomplishments in his career in the years to come. He started at UT with his Bachelor of Music degree in Music Studies (where he was also the Drum Major for the UT Marching Band), went to Michigan State University for his Masters of Music degree in Wind Conducting, and wrapped everything up with his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Wind Conducting at UT Austin. He is currently the Associate Director of Bands and Director of the Cowboy Marching Band at Oklahoma State University. Can you imagine a college football game without music? Well he's responsible for organizing it all and coming up with new music and routines for each week to keep you entertained! If you ever get the chance to catch an OSU game, I promise you won't be disappointed with the music (or the team!). To read Doug's full bio, click here.

Part of the fun of this weekend was road-tripping down to Austin with my sister and her daughter. I can't remember the last time we did that and it was so fun. We arrived at the hotel before everyone else and took advantage of the chance to lay by the pool. Sean stayed back and played Mr. Mom for the weekend as we didn't feel like two 2-3 hour graduation ceremonies were the best place for a baby. They had a great time and I'm thankful for a husband that can take that on without any questions or problems!

The first ceremony was for all the Doctoral candidates and took place in the auditorium where they called his name and he walked across the stage to get hooded and shake hands with all the significant UT faculty. Then at night, UT does a really cool outdoor ceremony for all the graduates (7,800 this year) with music, speeches and fireworks. That was a really neat and unique event that I can't imagine is done much better anywhere else.

Congratulations, Dr. Henderson. We are all so proud of you and look forward to your exciting future.

p.s. I hope you don't think this gets you out of me calling you Doogie. That's staying around, FYI.

Dinner the night before at Trudy's. We're all wearing our orange!

Mexican Margarita anyone? 

Pre-ceremony (Madison looked so pretty with her french braid and pink lip gloss!)

Getting hooded!

I kept thinking about how many hands this guy had to shake. Hope he had Purell! :)

Doug and my parents

Doug and his sisters

Doug and his niece, Madison

Our family!

Late lunch after the ceremony. Between us all we tried almost every margarita. Prickly Pear was my fave!