My first High School Graduate!

Shayne Graduated on May 22nd!  It was amazing.  She wore her hot pink heels!  It didn't match her cute new dress but they looked amazing with her BLACK cap and gown

See Madi's cap and gown?  Maroon.  Shayne's?  Black.  Apparently the Jostens company that they rent them from thought she was a boy.  She, of course, loved it and took it proudly without saying a word to anyone.  It was funny.  I told Joel something like that would happen when you name a girl a boy's name but he didn't listen.  Oh well.  It's a good thing she loves the attention.

Here she is sitting on the stage with the rest of the Executive Council.  What a good group of kids! 

Here are the other 200 graduates.

Here is Brad sleeping through it all.  That really isn't anything new because he did fall asleep in his own graduation just 3 days earlier.

As part of the Exec Council they got to graduate first and then shake everyone else's hands after they graduated as they went back to their seats.  This is Shayne and Buck, Nikki, Kyson, Enrique and Conner.  She hugged about 17 more as they went through.

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  Oh yeah...I almost forgot.  Right before Mr. Mees, our 2nd favorite principal next to Burke Staheli, stood up to talk the fire alarm went off.  We are blaming the Desert Hills High School kids.  It's something they would do.  Mr. Mees handled it like a pro and told everyone that they were talking to the fire department and to remain seated until they have turned off the alarm.  Then it was over and time to thank everyone for coming.  James & Jace were there and so were Michael and Jen and Pat.  Along with all of her older friends and co-workers whom we consider family as well.

My favorite part was about 5 minutes later when these 3 made their way over to Shayne.  Most kids would have stayed with their families but these 4 are family.  I just wish this guy wasn't in the way! 

This is Alex Jones, aka Tyler, aka Football is my religion Alex.  We heard of him way back in their Sophomore year when they would all talk about religion every single day at lunch.  Alex was always there, listening.  A year later he was baptized.  Now it's been another year and he is preparing for his mission!  I love this kid!  He is a great example to his friends. 

Here is Mitchell, Conner, Zack, Brescia, Shayne and Josh.  Another group of amazing kids!  Well, except Josh.  Just kidding buddy!

       

Here we are minus the 2 little boys.  They were there half the time until Kyle, who is awesome, took them and Evan to their city baseball games.  After everything was over we went back to our place to BBQ with the fam.  Jandy made Shayne this, -what's another word for amazing? - cake.  Shayne LOVED it!  It even has a quote from Mark Spitz on it.

This is Brad again.  Trying to bust his buttons and almost succeeding!  I laughed so hard I cried.  I am so thankful that my family could be there to support us.

What an AMAZING day!  I am so proud of the wonderful woman that Shayne has become.

My LAST Kindergarten Graduation!

My 5th and final time!!!  David has had Mrs. Shelley this year and she is AMAZING!  We have loved every second of Kindergarten.

David and Taiven lined up outside, super excited!

  They had a student teacher all year long named Mrs. Neumann and she was so good with the kids. 




So the program was great.  All of the classes lined up outside and then one by one they came dancing down the isle into the gym/lunchroom which was PACKED!  They sang a ton of songs and then went back to their classes to hand out awards and graduation certificates.
 



 My 5th Kindergarten graduation was just about the same as the first one, with three exceptions.
 Buck, Kyson and Zack.

I absolutely LOVE these three guys.  They came to the entire thing and cheered super loud when David got his "diploma".  There were a lot of grandparents there but David was the only one with his own cheer section.  He was so excited.  It was a lot of fun.  It's like he has 3 older brothers than Josh. 

This is Destiny.  They are BFF's.

I am so proud of all of my kids.  Even the ones who don't belong to me.  They have been a great influence to me and my family and I will be forever grateful.

Eclipse!

So on May  20th there was an Eclipse!  If you didn't see it then you totally missed out!  I bought a couple pair of special glasses so we didn't burn our eyeballs out.  We had heard about the Ring Of Fire and have now see one in real life.  I was amazed at how cool it was.  We went over to Jandy's because we were dog sitting and because they don't have any big trees by their place because of the neighboring sod farm.  So nothing to get in the way. 

Here is our little pin hole eclipse.  This is what you do if you don't have cool glasses.  It was fun to watch the phases.  Here it was on it's way and here is our pin hole picture of the ring.

Here is a professionals picture of the real thing.  It was amazing!  It's supposed to happen again in 2018!  Woo Hoo! 

Seminary Graduation!

So from our ward we had Shayne, Madi Howells, Nikki Monnett and Adam Evans.

 We are very proud of Shayne.  She is a great leader and has such a positive influence on everyone.

 Here's the friends: Chris, Brescia and Zack!

Graduation Invitation

Here it is!

Tuacahn Banquet

Every year Jandy has a end of year banquet for the kids who have been in the drama department.  She gives out many awards and certificates.  A couple years ago I was inducted into the Thespian troop #6337 as an honorary thespian for all my help .   It was an honor.  This year Joel had that same honor and so did Kyle and JoEllen.  This year the little kids all got a participation certificate because they were in Titanic.  They loved it.  It is always so emotional because they recognize the Sr.'s and everyone says goodbye.  This year it was saying good bye to Jan and Andy.  LOTS of tears.  But it was a good way to go out.  They will always be missed and loved!

Fe Man! AKA Ironman!

Every year we have volunteered to help Burke Staheli out with an aide station for the Ironman.  This year Burke wasn't a captain and told me I could take over.  Well, I would have if I could have Bike Aide Station #1.  It is the only one in Washington, the shortest, and the easiest do and man.  You have 6 tables with 15 people per table and you hand out Gatorade or water or food.  You start at 8 and are done by 11.  It's the one we did the first year.  Then last year Burke wanted to do a run aide station.  Well, he picked the worst one ever!  It was the turn around point in the run and it went from 9am until midnight.  We needed over 100 people and never stopped!  It was the hottest day in May on record and athletes where dropping like flies.  It was horrible.  So Burke took this year off and so did I.  Someone had bike aide station #1 so I  didn't plan on helping until Colby "Baggs" Nielson - my friend and neighbor who is charge of the Ironman - called me and asked me to fill in at the last second.  His person in charge of the Special Needs Bike Station had dropped out and had NO ONE signed up to help.  I had 2 weeks and needed 100 people.  We could have had 30 more and it would have gone better.  The aide station is called the special needs because the athletes put their "special needs" into a bag so they can get it at the 55th mile of the bike ride.  It was horrible.  Very disorganized and we had 4 college girls show up and acted like they were in charge and started telling me and Joel what to do.  I wanted to kill them.  But I needed the help.  We had over 1800 bags!  As a biker would come about a mile ahead someone would call down on their cell phone and tell us the number.  We would then yell out the number to people who would then run around like crazy people trying to find the bag in hopes to have it for them by the time they came through.  For the most part it worked out great.  I know that if I had control over who volunteered and didn't have any strangers just show up and try to take over, then it would have been a 1000 times better.  Oh well.  Here are some pictures.  We started at 4am and went until 3pm.  It was brutal.

At 4 until 6am we were downtown collecting bags from the athletes before they got in the buses to take them to the starting line.

 We put them into boxes that were numbered in 50's and loaded them up to take out to Dammerron Valley.

 Once there, we unloaded the bags and put them in numeric order so they would be easy to find.  The problem was that the wind was blowing so bad that we had to chase some of them down.  It was a bitter cold wind and I never took off my hoodie.  Everyone was freezing.

 Then the bikers came, and they came fast and in full force.

I am so glad it's over.  And I am extremely grateful for all of my friends and family who helped me out by volunteering.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!