Miss T's Eighth Grade Graduation

On Wednesday night we celebrated the eighth grade graduation of Cousin T. She looked so beautiful in her white cap and gown. It was amazing to see the little girl that used to sit on the porch swing and drank coffee with me, finishing up grade school. Where oh where does the time go? She has just received her diploma and is greeted by her parents.

Walking out of church with both of her parents and a beautiful bouquet of roses!

After the graduation, everyone gathered outside to get pictures with the graduates. Here is Cousin T with Papa, her school bus driver for eight of the last nine years!

And with one of her best friends!

After all the congratulations, we headed off to T's house for a feast! The only problem was that it was a school night and we couldn't party the night away! Here are some pictures of the festivities.

My sweet little boy!

I was going through my son's things from today and I found his report card. I had briefly looked at it earlier, but with so many things going on, I didn't really read it. When I did, I was beaming with pride. It really makes you proud when someone says nice things about your children.
Oh, how I wish my Mother could have met my son and been with us today!

Kindergarten Promotion!

Today was my son's Kindergarten Promotion. I can not believe that his first year of school is over! What happened to this last year? Here he is on his first day of school. It seems like that was just yesterday!

He has really grown this year in many ways. He is more confident and independent. He can read, write and even do arithmetic! He has made friends and won awards. He has had moments of accomplishments and moments of disappointments. He will miss Kindergarten but he is now looking forward to first grade! I have to stop blinking!

His sister said this morning while we were waiting to go to the promotion, "I can't wait to get to the Gradulation!" I think she blended graduation and congratulations!

Here are some of the highlights of the day.

I pray that God will bless all these little ones over the summer. May he send his angels to guide and protect them!

Friday Night Tacos

At the family reunion, we had a Friday Night Taco Night! We barbequed carne asada meat and grilled tortillas. We then made tacos! They were oh so good!

We want to make this a new tradition for Friday Night!

Remembering

Lord, Bless all who have made the ultimate sacrifice for us and our country. Grant their families and loved ones comfort and peace. God Bless America and all of our Servicemen and Women.

61 Degrees and Sprinkling

Last weekend the weather forecast was 105 degrees, so the kids played in the snow. Today it was 61 degrees and raining so they went swimming! There is something wrong with this. We went to a cousin's house for a going away party. They had a beautiful pool installed over the winter and everyone was excited to be going to their house for a party that was to include swimming. The only thing was the weather man did not cooperate. It was cold and raining! We therefore did not even pack bathing suits for the kids when we left our house.

Little did we know that their pool was heated! They had started heating it early that morning and it was 84 degrees when we got there. It didn't take long for the kids to put their feet in and check out how deep it was.

The pool has a really nice shallow beach area so the kids of course kept pushing how far they could go in. Before I realized it, their clothes were getting wetter and wetter!

So what did we do, we just took off those clothes. Our cousin's grandson was there and he was jumping in and swimming, but of course he had his swim suit. When you are young and innocent, anything can be a bathing suit, so off they went into the pool.

The kids had so much fun swimming in the sprinkles. They kept going between the pool and the spa and enjoyed every minute of it!

And mom of course was having fun taking pictures!

My daughter is practicing her swimming while she is laying on the top step! She was really trying to work on her freestyle stroke even though she has never had lessons!

My son was also swimming really hard, making sure he had his noodle, while he swam in the shallow beach! We have to get these kids in swimming lessons soon!

We took a break for lunch and the three little ones had fun swinging. They had a fun time playing and swimming together.

After lunch more of the older kids got in. My son finally had someone to guide him into the deep end of the pool. He looks like he is enjoying himself here but I'm sure he has a death grip on his arm under the water.

My daughter also ventured out into the pool with one of her big cousins, but the spa was her favorite place of all.

And what is better after a hard day swimming but ice cream sandwiches! It was a very fun day with another unexpected adventure. What could possibly happen next weekend?

Pippy!

I just loved this picture of my little girl! My sweet little Pippy Longstocking!

My Turtle Boy

On Wednesday, my son performed in his first Spring Fling at school. His class performed to "Jeremiah was a Bullfrog, Joy to the World". Because they had been studying sea life, the boys were asked to be sea creatures and the girls were to be mermaids. My son at first wanted to be a crab but changed to "Crush" the sea turtle from Finding Nemo. Of course, I waited until the last minute to make his costume and was up until 12:30am the morning of the performance.

I thank God that his Godmother can sew and is very creative. If it wasn't for her creativity this costume would not have come together.

He looked very cute in his turtle costume and I kept calling him "My little Turtle Boy." All the boys in his class liked his costume because they thought he was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

He did very well in his performance and the kindergarten class stole the show! All the kids looked very cute and performed like little professionals.

His first Spring Fling was a huge success.

It was also my niece's last Spring Fling. The eighth graders always perform a Waltz. The get all dressed up and looked so grown up! My niece looked so beautiful, just like a Debutante! My sister, her mother had my camera, and she didn't get any good pictures! It must have been the tears in her eyes.

My little girl had lots of fun watching all the kids dance and sing. She can't wait until its her turn. I had fun trying to get caught up on my sleep after preparing one costume, I don't know what I will do when I am trying to make two!

Friday Night Campfire

The Friday Night Campfire is the prelude to the big campfire on Saturday Night. People are arriving and come out to the fire to say hello and see who all is here. This Friday night it was on the chilly side so we never got a large crowd. But of course we had a good time with those who were there!

The Golf Tournament

I was looking forward to photographing the 2nd Annual DeGroat Family Golf Tournament on Friday of the Reunion weekend. That excitement changed rather quickly when I got to the golf course. Since I was not playing and neither were two other women in our group, we decided that we would meet up with the tournament on the ninth hole. We would go shopping and then I would photograph the back nine holes. When I got to the course I found our carts all lined up at the 10th hole ready to tee off. When the three of us and my 3 year old daughter showed up, we were greeted by a very somber group. I guess just before we got there, the course Marshall chastised the group for stopping for lunch. Their stopping for lunch, caused a back up of people and some unhappy old folks.

We didn't know what had happened, so we were sort of joking around and not really paying attention to the golf course etiquette. This of course only made matters worse! A three year old running around on the golf course doesn't make for happy golfers! My mistake!

I was clicking pictures of the foursomes in the carts as they were waiting to tee off. I was on the wrong side for taking pictures of them actually golfing, so I got a lot of backside. I will kindly refrain from posting those pictures!

Here is my husband and his cousin. They were both in a good mood and I don't think they knew all that had taken place.

These two, a cousin and his friend, played with my husband's group. They ended up coming in second place.

Next came two more cousins...

And another cousin and our adopted cousin! This group came in first place! Way to go girls, and guys too!

I thought this was a nice picture of the view from the tenth hole. Here one of the cousins has just finished teeing off. That is the ocean at the top of the picture. It is a beautiful hole to tee off from. Just before this picture, one of the cranky old men came and really let us have it. When he first started his tirade, he said, "What are you doing?" One of us late comers said, "Oh were having a party!" This was the WRONG thing to say! If it wasn't for one of the youngest members who did an excellent job at killing the old fart with kindness, it would have been ugly.

So us girls just left and went and had a nice lunch of fish tacos! So much for photographing the tournament!

Isn't this just a beautiful picture of a daisy? The colors were so gorgeous! Everything grows prettier and more colorful at the coast!

A new Best Friend!

We went to a baseball game today and the Little Cesar Man caught my daughter's eye. She kept wanting to go over to him and say hi. When he finally came to our section, she was very excited! He even sat next to her and she didn't want to let him leave. It was too cute! On the way home she told me he was her new bestest best friend!

What you do when the forecast calls for 105 Degrees!

When the weather man says that the temperature is going to be 105 degrees, you set out with the kids in shorts and tank tops. You thank your lucky stars that your father built a cabin in the mountains and you head there to open it up for the summer! You let the kids go play in the creek and enjoy the warm, hot weather. And then you get even luckier and find some snow that has not melted, and you go sledding!

Big cousin Kae and my little girl try going down the hill together.

Big sister Kae then takes little sister Jae down the hill for the first time.

My son trudging up the hill with his Target bag sled. Notice the tennis shoes, shorts and t-shirt. Oh and no gloves!

Kae was the bravest going down many many times.

And isn't Cee cute getting in on the action too!

The little ones had fun throwing some snowballs, just like their big cousin T.

Kae again, this time almost wiping out at the very end of the snow!

And my little one finally being brave enough to tackle the hill by herself! Again notice the shorts and the snow on her legs! The snow was still very cold even though it was warm. All their hands were very pink when they were done. The kids all had a great time enjoying the 105 degree weather!