These are all such awesome photos. I love the one of your mom on stage; she looks like such a rock star. And that last picture—bragging rights forever.

I believe you should not put long posts under a cut for the sake of maintaining a culture of long-form blogging that's in danger of extinction these days. Seriously, some people seem to believe that if you can't say it in under 140 characters, it ain't worth saying. I'm not one of those people.