The Brigham Young University - Hawaii 2008 Commencement Ceremony took place on Saturday. I decided to check it out, as I had an uncle, cousin, and several close friends finally earning their degrees.

The ceremony was very nice, and rather solemn–I give a lot of credit to Vernelle Lakatani, the school registrar, for her efforts to correctly pronounce long, tongue twister names from Hawaii, Samoa, Mongolia, China, Tonga, the Philipines, Marshall Islands, and countless other exotic countries of origin.

Of course, once the ceremony was over, the madness began.

I had to sort through this crowd to give out the 8 lei I brought with me!

I thought these signs were adorable.

Congrats to all the graduates who are moving on to the next big step in their lives, be it careers or graduate school–you worked hard for it!