Delgadillos get leave from Iraq to see daughter graduate high school

Here’s a nice smile for a Monday: Soldiers’ family reunites for graduation:

For months, Stephanie Delgadillo was on an emotional seesaw, not sure whether her mother, Staff Sgt. Claudia Hernandez-Smith, and stepfather, Staff Sgt. Gary Smith, would be granted leave from their deployments in Iraq in time to attend her graduation from Hesperia High School.

In their absence, Stephanie’s older sister, Audrey, now 21, had tended their younger siblings: Grace, 10; Ashley, 5; and Emily, 3. Stephanie had also lived at home until mid-April, when she moved in with her boyfriend after turning 18.

Now, as a sun-splashed afternoon gave way to dusk at the Hyundai Pavilion in Devore this past Thursday, the ovation at the end of the ceremony signaled the culmination of a nearly two-day, knee-aching plane trip that took the parents from Iraq to Kuwait to Scotland to Dallas and finally home.

“I didn’t want to miss it,” Hernandez-Smith said. “To me, it’s like a wedding. They only do it once. It’s a big step, and we wanted to make sure we were here.”

Nearly a year ago, Hernandez-Smith and her husband were deployed with a Black Hawk helicopter division of the Army’s 131st Aviation Regiment stationed at Balad Air Base, about 50 miles north of Baghdad. The Hesperia couple requested to serve together because Smith, who’d previously done a tour in Iraq, was concerned for his wife’s safety during her first deployment.

The deployments prompted a family meeting at which Audrey Delgadillo volunteered to watch over her sisters.

Though Ashley and Emily begged to know when their parents were coming home, Audrey kept their pending arrival secret, even when she picked them up at LA/Ontario International Airport on Tuesday.

“They looked at us like they wanted to make sure it was us before they did anything,” Hernandez-Smith said of the homecoming. “They didn’t run and hug us, it was more like I came to them.”

It was Stephanie, working at Baskin-Robbins, who became teary during a surprise reunion.

“I was in the back and going to take out the trash,” she said. “I looked at the monitor and saw people dressed in military gear come in. It took a second and then I realized it was them and started crying.”

“We still had to pay for our ice cream, though,” Smith joked.

New Liz Phair, Storm Large

Liz Phair has a track on the new Nancy Drew soundtrack, which is the kind of thing iTunes is made for. (I’m also curious how the Donnas do with “Kids in America.”)

Meanwhile, Storm Large has a new album coming out on CD Baby sometime this month (dates vary). It will apparently also be available as a digital download.

Grandmother Katherine Memorial Day

My super-cool Grandmother Ekmark (the namesake for my brother’s oldest daughter) would have been 93 today. We’re having ice cream tonight in her honor.

America’s obsession with pets

I’m still clawing my way back to health after the flu, so the pace of posts here will continue to be slow for a bit. (The whole moving-to-a-new-house thing won’t make it faster, either.)

But here’s a good (although long) article I read the other day: A Pampered Pet Nation.

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Virginia Tech Magazine memorial issue

Normally, Virginia Tech Magazine is light on content I’m very interested in — glance at the articles and flip to the alumni notes section is the rule for me — but the newest issue is a keeper.

It’s the April 16, 2007 memorial issue and has full transcripts of the convocation speeches, a photo gallery of memorials around campus and elsewhere in the world, and full write-ups on the victims.

You can check it out online or download the PDF here.