the graduate

Actually, we have three graduates in the family, if you count all of the "graduations" that they have nowadays.  Mia finished middle school, Lucy finished elementary (early years) and Maddy just plain old graduated from the whole darn thing.  Yup, she is done.

For Lucy, they had a "farewell", although they did were "caps" that they made, complete with tassels. 

It was a fun little program and didn't even last too long.  Pleasantly surprised.  We are sad though because we don't have any more children to be in Mrs. Marten's class - the best teacher ever.  That is pretty sad.

The big, big deal was our high school graduate.  Yes, Maddy is done high school.  Its bad enough to have a kid graduate from high school, but I am pretty sure it is much worse (harder) when it happens an entire year earlier than you thought it would!  She was/is definitely ready thought, so it really is just as well.

Eric's mom and her husband John (Oma and Opa) flew in for the big occasion.  Maddy (well, all of us) were thrilled that they would come all the way out here for it and to see us.  It was so great seeing them and having them here.  More on that later.....

We had fabulous seats (second row from the front, right in the middle) for the commencement.  It is handy having a brother in high places....  The high school VP can kinda get some perks!

Maddy's "date" was her good friend Jenna (who is in grade 11).  Poor Jenna had to endure the ceremony between Glenda and I.  It wouldn't have been so bad if the pianist wasn't playing "Disney's top twenty" and the entire "Sound of Music" sound track during the presentation of the diplomas.  We sang along (extremely quietly, of course) to almost every song.... so she had us in stereo..... lucky girl!

(Maddy is not in this picture - she was too far away - but cousin/niece Alex is right in the middle)

Bea and Malachi, the valedictorians.

Robb Nash, the speaker.

Brent got to give Maddy her diploma (well, actually give her the empty folder thingy).  He took her off-guard by giving her a big ol' sweet hug.

Alex got a hug and a kiss.... apparently he picks favourites (so what if she is his daughter!!)

Surprisingly the commencement was rather long.  Weird, hey?  There just doesn't seem to be a way that they can do these things without letting every official type person say something.  But we were very impressed with how quickly they got through so many grads!

Everyone was a little overwhelmed seeing Eric in a suit.  Maddy said "who are you?" when she first saw him after the ceremony was over.  I don't know if she has ever seen him in a suit - at least not in her memory.

Okay, she does look rather dazed in this picture, but you can still see how gorgeous Maddy looked.  She had a very simple, elegant dress - navy blue, lace on top, kind of capped sleeves, buttons all the up the back, chiffon long skirt, and a low empire waist. 

A few hours after the commencement, they had a banquet.  At the banquet they played the muzak versions of the current top 40 songs.  So then Jenna had to endure the opera version of "We're up all night to get some....".  That I did solo, as Glenda was at another table.  Sheesh - they need to work on the music end of things.  CHEESE.

At the start of the banquet the grads all paraded in.  Alex and Maddy were almost at the end of the line - they were smart.... they didn't have to walk around much.  Maddy's escort was her friend Nick - Nick who happens to be her date's "ex" (and is probably now not her ex anymore, but her current!  These are the days of our lives....)  They had fun.

While Maddy isn't super tall (almost 5'4"?), she looks like a shrimp in this picture.  That would be because she was, as far as I'm concerned, the only smart one in the bunch.  She wore flats.  Cute little gold scrappy sandals - sandals that she could keep on all night and not go crazy or be in pain or haul around flip flops in case of the previous two issues.  She deserves more than just a high school diploma.  She deserves a common-sense-life-brainiac award.  Make that a scholarship.  Like a full ride scholarship to somewhere cool.

Then prom happened.  I was on the parent committee that planned prom, and so I had been rather busy that whole day decorating for the thing.  It was fun but rather exhausting.  I spent the entire prom taking pictures of students and their escorts.  That was pretty fun to do actually.

I don't actually know these girls but I liked this photo....

Grad was Saturday.  Sunday was about recuperating.  Especially since we were up until 4:45 (prom went until 3:00, then we had to clean up, then thankfully we had a hotel room in the city so we didn't have to drive back to Steinbach after).  We shared a hotel room with Glenda and Alex and the five of us (Jenna stayed too) crashed.  The next morning we went out for a late breakfast and drove home.  It probably doesn't even need to be stated that I took a nap that Sunday.

Monday evening, Glenda planned a grad party for Alex and Maddy at Uncle Weigand and Paul's land.  It was so nice.  She did everything and I stood around life a loaf.  We both did the part we are good at....

For about 2 weeks or so, we had really smokey/hazy weather.  We were getting smoke from forest fires in Saskatchewan.  Every night the sun was bright orangey-pink.  So cool looking.  This was one of those evenings.  It made some very cool reflections on the water.

We had dinner - hamburgers and hot dogs, and the kids all went and played in the water.  As you can see from all the pictures, they had a blast just hanging on the floating dock and knocking each other off.  We watched them and just howled at the fun they were having.  Pretty funny stuff.  They were pretty relentless with each other - and no one even got hurt or mad at each other.  Crazy.

Alex was wearing a new rash guard shirt.  Unbeknownst to her, it filled up with air rather easily so she ended up looking pregnant occasionally.  That was rather hilarious too.

Kyle was being picked on by all those nasty people on the dock, so he decided to go for a jump and splash.  Unfortunately, his running start off the diving board ended up with a major slip.  We are very thankful that he ended up okay!

After all the energy was expended by shoving others around, it was time for dessert.

The three graduates (and Maddy living her third-wheel lifestyle to the last).

We ended the evening pretty much the coolest way ever.  After cleaning up and all that good stuff, we headed out of the property.  As we were driving along, we suddenly see two bear cubs!  I couldn't get my good camera out fast enough, unfortunately, but we did get these photos.

My uncle had warned us about them - mostly because of the mama bear sticking pretty close to her cubs - so we knew it was a possibility that we may see them sometime.  It was pretty thrilling to actually have been that close.  The first picture was taken from my drivers side window.  That little cub was about 10 feet from the car.  So amazing.

Now the party was over and all three of these grads headed to camp the next day.  A the life of the young and free.

grad prep

Sometimes the line between wisdom and folly seems very blurred, very narrow.  That would be the case with deciding to join the parent committee for grad.  I was pretty excited about it and for the most part enjoyed the whole thing - met some wonderful people, got to have a creative outlet, good things like that.  The bad things I won't bother going in to....  it is best to leave it unstated, especially publicly!

Mainly the committee was in charge of planning what they call prom (but really isn't a prom - at least not what an American prom is like - where prom probably started).  It was a "safe grad" event which meant that it was highly regulated and there were a lot of guidelines to follow - in order to protect against drugs, drunk driving and other destructive type things.  It was also highly regulated as far as the decorating was concerned, but that was just because of a persnickety venue.  Many limitations - but that's all good.  I like a good challenge.

Some of the larger work was done white-trash style on our front yard, since our backyard was a big torn-up mud pit.  I'm not sure the neighbours enjoyed it, but it certain raised their curiosity!  One of them did end up coming out and asking me what in the world I was doing.  You'll see the results later....

All the various parts of the committee were supposed to have subcommittees but I only had one person sign up (and no, they didn't know it was me who was doing it, so that didn't stop anyone!!).  And then another person volunteered later.  But they both ended up flaking, so I was on my own.  Thankfully I have a great family!

Glenda and the girls and my girls and I worked on making the decorations for the centrepieces.  Decoupaging maps on to numbers (2015) and cans (for vases).  It was fun doing it together, plus I would have been up a creek without them.  There is no way I would have finished!

Maddy helped some as well, but had quite a bit of studying to do as well.  She wasn't all that thrilled with me taking pictures....

Here is the end result of what was made:  7 foot marquee-style numbers and the centrepieces:

The other decorating was just helium balloons, with these cool little lights that I bought to put inside. The idea was to have them on the ceiling over the dance floor - just kind of suspended there, since I wasn't allowed to put any thing up on the ceiling.  The problem was that the balloons they sent me weren't the ones I ordered.  They were not helium quality balloons so the balloons started falling within 15 minutes of them being filled.  And they kept falling throughout the evening.

It actually looked really cool - I loved it and was kind of excited about it.... having some on the ground, some literally mid-air, and some still on the ceiling.  The lady in charge, however, did not at all like that there were balloons on the ground (tripping hazard or some paranoid garbage like that), so we had to keep gathering them.  Very disappointing.

Whatever the case, it was a great evening and looked rather fabulous, if I do say so myself!