This weekend was part of the culmination of 33 months of money, sweat, tears, time, energy, and some cursing along the way. OK, maybe a lot of some of that. Especially the cursing part.
Friday was graduation at Murray State University. Bonus Kid #2’s boyfriend graduated; they’ve dated since October 2023, he was who we met first as “her friend, who’s just a guy” and then had to re-meet as the boyfriend. He led the national anthem and the alma mater at his ceremony. We spent time with his parents [who we’d seen from prior visits] and his siblings [who we hadn’t met, but were aware of] and did a dinner with them after. He has 2 jobs lined up, one already underway and the other starting in August. M still has a year and a half of school to go, but they at least have an apartment that’s good enough for now and he can still help her navigate the last year of school + the half-semester of student teaching after that.
Saturday was graduation at Southeast Missouri State. Bonus Kid #1 graduated, along with their friend - we need a name here, let’s use M* - that they’ve stayed with ever since this episode unfolded. All the bonus parents were there for that, plus a few people from the twins’ dad’s side of the family that we finally got to meet. [The mom’s side was explicitly not invited. The parents of the lazy af ex-stepdad would have been OK, but because of their age and condition they wouldn’t have made it. Skippy was explicitly told a while back do not come around again and shockingly has not tried it.]
Saturday was a bigger deal not just because m finally got to this point - as magna cum laude, and recognized in their department - but because M* also did, and has had to spend parts of the last 3 years “in the shadows” because of everything going on with m and M. Mrs. Hoffman and I made it a point to pull M* aside and say something very close to “we can’t begin to express how much we appreciate you opening your home up for them, and we know you had to sacrifice as a result. Even if we don’t know all of what you sacrificed and how much that hurt, we know you did; know that we tried as best we could to include you in things we did when we were there, if we didn’t do enough, we are really sorry. We love you so much and you really are another daughter to us - we are always here for you, do not hesitate to get in contact with us if you ever need anything and you can’t get a hold of your parents or think for any reason you can’t talk to them.” M* broke down sobbing, and we had a big hug and she talked very briefly but let us know how much she appreciated us being there for her too.
And yes, our kids have had to sacrifice as well. They know that, we’ve talked about it. They agree it was necessary, they’d have told us to do it even if they didn’t know everything they were signing up for at the start.
22 hours on the road, down and across and back. One major milestone down. Would still do all of this again.
And, that won’t be provided until perhaps March. 
Not like they don’t have the money to cover stuff, but it’s Las Vegas and even though they were there last summer, all of those logistics were taken care of; this will be more “figure it out yourself.” So, I’m going to go out and be there while they’re there. That helps with figuring out questions that will arise by being in-person vs. having to figure it out from 2,000 miles away, plus putting an actual credit card down vs. they only have a debit card and if something happens with it, what money they have gets completely locked up.