Fathers Day Feast

Fathers day afternoon started out with a bang and a lot of people! We hosted a lunch for one of our Church's missionary families and several others. After a long nap following this activity present time finally rolled around. He was happy with his manly gifts, I was not happy that on the second flash he put a gift box in front of his face to ruin the picture so I wanted to make sure you all saw it, not that it would guilt him into changing, quite honestly if he ever sees this he will laugh.... dads! All in all, it was a good day of enjoying Dad and all the things he's done for us all year round.

Ludington

On the road again! One of the favorite annual camping trips for the family is Ludington State Park.

The first night's sunset looked like it was going to be lame, but at the last minute there was a beautiful explosion of color!

We always enjoy the lake walk, this year we saw more wildlife than ever! A swan had made her next right by the bridge, there was a crane calling for his mate, and there were chipmunks everywhere too!

It is always nice to sit around the fire and enjoy catching up on each other's company. Biking up to swim at the beach and the dam was nice too. The ducks were very bold in the swimming area looking for food. We also walked to the dunes. One night we had ice cream on Oma - that was really a treat!

And yet, the best laid plans of mice and men so often go awry! As you can see in the last picture - we are waiting along the side of the road for AAA to bring our smoking trailer bearing to somewhere it could be fixed - now that messed up or afternoon nicely! But as you can see, we really know how to wait out a problem. :)

Party Party!

Plenty of petit fours, mounds of meatballs, darling decorations, constant conversation and a house filled with friends. This pretty much summarizes my graduation open house! It was a great day, despite the wind in the morning! Sunshine all evening and excellent food and company! Everybody was so generous and I had a great time celebrating with so many people who care about me.

The Big Moment....

Graduation! It will linger forever in my mind! Possibly the most memorable moment was it's very opening. Our pianist lost the music to pomp and circumstance, so instead my father hummed it in front of the entire audience! Won't forget that any time soon. :) The ceremony went very well, I got to read the class verse, thus the picture of me by the microphone. After pomp and circumstance, everything went off without a hitch. The last day as a student at MCS went perfectly, I will never forget all the wonderful things that happened to me there - it was a huge part of my life and I loved it!

Thanks to my grandparents and everyone else who came to celebrate with me, there or at my party with attendance or cards and gifts! It's those little things that make times like these times really special.

And just for the record, several of these pictures came off my friends facebooks, so credit where it is due, they weren't all me. :)

Senior Trip Day Five

We did it! We hit all four parks! :) I don't think I missed a single ride I wanted to go on. It was so neat to see the parks I had never been to. Epcott we visited the night before and rode the viking ride, Soarin' and Test Track. We could see the dome all lit up from our balcony, right across the water. In the morning we headed out to Animal Kingdom. We got a fast pass for Expedition Everest and rode the safari while we were waiting. Then it was over to Hollywood Studios, where we got a fast pass for the rockin' roller coaster and ate lunch. One friend did the tower of terror - I didn't, sorry all. We rode Soarin' again while waiting for our fast pass time to come around. Rockin' Roller coaster was cool. As soon as we were done with that, we shopped around. Then we met up with the big group and as a big group went to the Magic kingdom. With our disney-experienced chaperone at the lead we were able to get to all the rides there we wanted too - it helped that we had until one o'clock. :)

What a great trip! It really is the happiest place on earth.

Senior Trip Day Four

Universal Studio Day!! Not only did they have rides, the whole atmosphere was amazing! We actually went to the part of the park called Islands of Adventure, which has more rides, I believe. Anyway, we certainly enjoyed it there, I think the best part was how artistic the place was. In the cartoon land you felt like you were in a cartoon, same with the comic book section, and the Seuss Landing and medieval section. Even standing in line was fun.

That night we started Epcott and got settled into our new room; the girls got four balconies from which we could see the Epcott dome and an actual staircase- in our room!!! Though you could call it a house!