Milestones: High School Graduation!

Well, she did it ....

Yep, she did it ... Kotch walked down the aisle on a warm early-Summer evening, walking down the aisle as a mere kid in high school. A couple of hours later, she walked out to be greeted by her youngest brother in the gathering darkness; she walked out a young woman ready to face the world with all the gifts and blessings she's been given, all the tools necessary to go off to college!

What a wonderful night it was ... with great speeches from a few of the seniors (the best being the last by Kotch's good friend), a great experiential speech from R-Nebraska Congressman Fortenberry, and a wonderful Mass celebrated by favorite-parish priest, Fr. Searby!

The evening was long but well-worth-it for the younger three to see their sister graduate -- so, one down and three to go!

We are EXTREMELY proud of our daughter and her hard work ... and for those who haven't heard, she'll be heading down to Ave Maria University this Fall to begin her science studies with an eye to becoming a doctor someday .. or whatever else God might have in mind for her!

God bless you, Kotch -- we love you!

Where should we go today? The Weekend Edition!

We're starting to really heat up around here, in more ways than one!

Friday: We finished our science this year with a thermal transference experiment (recipe below) and then Kotch had her Awards Night at Seton ... which meant leaving home at 5:30, heading to Chick-fil-a for dinner (a great way to celebrate our last Friday in Easter-tide), than to school. Home after 10:00!

Saturday: shopping extravaganza with Kotch to hunt for "the" graduation dress; I found shoes! Than off to the commissioning of a family friend -- now a 2nd-lieutenant in the USMarine Corps. The ceremony, held at the Marine Corps Museum, was beautiful with the commissioning directed by his dad, a Colonel (reserves) and his brothers helping (three young marines) and their pastor from Oklahoma to bless him and pray over his active-duty years. After the actual commissioning, we had a lovely party at their home and then dh and I headed to the "last semi-formal of the year" at his high school. Serving soda and snacks to hot sweaty kids was a great time! (No, really! They are mostly great kids who just want to socialize with their schoolmates!).

Sunday: after a lovely Pentecost Mass, we headed up to the District to visit the American History museum and the National Gallery of Art. After seeing Night at the Museum earlier this week, we realized we hadn't been up to the museums in a while. The kids so enjoy the Spark!Lab and other hands-on activities and we had a blast visiting the presidential exhibits and viewing some of the films they've compiled. We focused quite a bit of our American history this past semester on the first five presidents, so it was great to see them remembering those guys and then finding out more about the others. The Art museum (which has the best food on the Mall!) is always a favorite -- especially for dh. We wandered the rooms, occasionally sitting on the couches and just gazing at the pictures: BamBam's favorite is Daniel and the Lions while String Bean and I loved all the DellaRobbia's and LegoManiac prefers the bloody ones (like George and the Dragon, etc). Dh loves the art from the Netherlands/Germany/Brussels of the 1500s-1700s ....

A GREAT weekend! Tomorrow? Kotch's graduation from high school!