Jackson’s Graduation Celebration, Day 1: Open House in Northville, Dinner at Tirami Sú

May 31, 2025

While our hotel breakfast was free, it was… not so hot. While Liz was showering and getting ready, I headed out to find some decongestant medication and to get some food.

After hitting up CVS for some Sudafed, I stopped at Starbucks for some light fare. After eating in our hotel room, we stopped over at Alwadi Coffee for a Cortado, before heading to the Holder household.

On arriving, we were greeted with all manner of signage announcing the big event. And Liz, on brand, was focused on the new mulch in the yard.

Inside, we got to hang out a bit with the family before the guests arrived. The open house was pretty low key overall, and just consisted of family and family friends.

Kirt and Anne, doing a banner reveal. Note: this would eventually end up as a car decoration in a few hours. There’s a tradition where the graduating students all dress up a car, and then drive them in a line in a kind of parade down the street.

Jackson, posing with his banner.

Sandy, falling down on her job as greeter of guests. But I guess she’s mostly focusing on greeting the sun with her face, so on that score she was doing a bang up job.

As folks gathered, everyone sat around the kitchen table (or just hung out in the kitchen). After a while, guests got a mock quiz (with questions testing what we knew about Jackson – his hobbies, favorite foods, etc).

Everyone filled out their sheets, and Jackson went down the list – offering up the “correct” answers (though there were a few where he made some exceptions).

I think Liz and I got 11 and 10 points, respectively – which wasn’t the highest score, but I feel was a good showing on our parts.

Oh my word, the spread for the party was something else. So much delicious food, three different casseroles (one of which was chicken and waffles), coffee cake, muffins like you couldn’t imagine – so much good food, all around.

In the afternoon we all split up a bit. Some folks followed Kirt for a quick tour of Mill Race. Liz and I stayed at the house, but eventually Anne and Jackson left to go decorate (and attend) the car parade.

Liz and I ended up heading back to the hotel, where we tried to get a bit of rest before dinner. Translation: we ended up finding “The Karate Kid” playing on the hotel TV, and watched it for a good hour plus.

After that, I tried to get a quick nap in but more or less got just 15 minutes. A quick wardrobe change later, we were in the car and headed to the restaurant.

For dinner, we met up at Tirami Sú. A lot of great food, and some great conversations. My only regret was that we were on the other end of the table, and didn’t have much time to chat with Jackson, his girlfriend Angel, and Grace all that much.

L to R, it’s: Elsa, Kirt, Owen, Grace, Jackson, Angel, Connor, Kal, Anne, and Liz.

After dinner, we gathered back at the Holder house. There, we all had an extra slice of cheesecake to top off the night, and sat in the main living room, telling and listening to some stories.

It was a fun time, but I was struggling a lot at this point in the evening. I think the early morning wake-up I had made me overly tired, and we ended up saying our farewells around 10:30 PM or so. Which was a shame, because I would have loved to have stayed longer, but sleep was weighing on me in a heavy way.

Despite how tired I was at the end of the day… I liked that Jackson wanted just a small gathering of family (instead of a large influx of friends), and we all got to hang out and talk a bit. And catch up with the folks we knew, and to hear stories from the folks we just met.

A very fun and full day, with family all around.