Brooklyn's High School Graduation

Brooklyn graduated from High School last Saturday. We started celebrating early in the week when Grandma and Grandpa Smith arrived for the festivities.

The last day of school I posted this cute picture on Facebook. First day of Kindergarten and last day of Senior year. Wow! Where have the years gone! The only thing I will not miss is packing that blue lunch box each day! 

 Wednesday I went with Brooklyn to the schools Mother & Me Tea.  

Friday night was the Jubilation celebration at the school. We took a few pictures before we went to it. 

This is a great picture of Brooklyn with my mom and dad. 

 Brooklyn tried out to perform one of the musical numbers at Jubilation. And...she made it! So proud of her. She played a Disney song, "I can go the distance" from Hercules. It was amazing.

 Program with Brooklyn's name in it. What an honor to be chosen to play a musical number in front of your entire graduating class. Pretty impressive.

Our good friend Nancy, who was one of Brooklyn's piano teachers came to listen to her musical number. I love this picture of the two of them.

Brooklyn & Lauryn

Brooklyn & Heidi

Brooklyn & Maddy

Proud parents! 

When we got home that night Brooklyn opened her graduation gifts. She got a 25 lb. bag of rice and a  rice cooker to take to college with her. She was pretty excited!

She also got a new computer from us. She was pretty excited about that. She received a lot of nice gifts and card from family and friends. 

Saturday afternoon was graduation. 

 Brooklyn enjoyed having grandma and grandpa here for her graduation.

 Here we are in the stands at the graduation ceremony.

 Here she is about to receive her diploma.

Yay...she has her diploma!

 Hugging the principle.  

 What a cute smile she has! And we love the "thumbs -up"!

 Here she is giving one of her friends a fist pump!

Picture after graduation!

 After graduation we went to a Japanese teppanyaki place for dinner. It was Brooklyn's choice. 

What a fun day celebrating Brooklyn's accomplishments in High School. 

As we close this chapter in her life we look forward to all the exciting things she accomplishes and all the adventures she takes as she heads off to college in the fall. 

CONGRATULATIONS BROOKLYN KAY!

Brooklyn's Seminary Graduation

Sunday night was seminary graduation. 

Congratulations Brooklyn! So proud of you. 

Brooklyn's Senior Ball

Brooklyn had senior ball last Saturday. 

She looked absolutely beautiful. A lot of people commented that she looked like Belle from Disney's Beauty and the Beast. And she did!

 She did her own hair and it turned out great. It was part up and part down.

 She went with her friend Josh.

 They made for a stunning couple.

 Such a beautiful corsage.

 We can't believe this was our last prom to experience with our girls. It's been so fun to be a part of all their fun prom dates. 

 Brooklyn and Josh doubled with Heidi and Mason.

 They started off at our house for pictures. Then we gave them an address to go to for appetizers. Steve and I set up a table with appetizers at a near by small public airport. 

While they were enjoying their appetizers they got to watch the small airplanes take off and land. There were also sky divers jumping. After appetizers they went on a picture scavenger hunt before heading back to our house for dinner before the dance. 

 For dinner we served them bbq steak, garlic mashed potatoes, sesame green beans, raspberry layered jello and homemade breadsticks. 

Having dinner. 

 Before leaving for the dance Brooklyn and Heidi decided to change from their heals to flip flops! Good idea girls!

Brooklyn...you looked absolutely beautiful and we are so happy that you got to go to your senior ball with Josh. 

Trip to Santa Cruz over Memorial Day weekend

It was a Tuesday morning and I was busy cleaning the house when I received a phone call from Steve who was at work. He called and told me that his airplane delivery that was supposed to have lots of activity over the Memorial Day weekend had been pushed out. He then suggested that we get in the car and drive to Santa Cruz, California and join my family who would be camping. At first I thought he was crazy to even suggest it. I told him no way! There was too much to plan to make it happen. I hung up the phone and continued to clean. The more I thought about it the more I liked the idea of jumping in the car and heading off for an adventure. So I called Steve back and told him I wanted to go. The next 6 hours were filled with washing, packing, arranging someone to watch Kia and having Brooklyn find subs for work while she was gone. Everything was falling into place except Brooklyn finding subs. We had the car packed and everything done but at 8:30 that evening Brooklyn still hadn't found a sub. At 9:30 that night I got a text from Brooklyn at work saying she had just found someone to work for her! YAHOO!! We were going on a trip!

Tuna sandwich! Yum!

And Cheetos go perfect with tuna sandwiches!
It was a 15 hour drive to Santa Cruz but we love road trips and didn't mind it at all.

As is tradition at Santa Cruz, Steve jumped into a dumpster at a construction site to find us some firewood.

It was a lot of fun staying in my mom and dads campsite with them. 

We have a beautiful travel trailer that has all the comforts of home but we weren't able to pull it with us. So we camped the old fashioned way...in a TENT! It was actually really fun. We enjoyed doing some of the cooking while we were there. 

We had yummy breakfasts everyday.

Brooklyn had a lot of fun with her cousins. Here she is playing Phase 10 with Jacob and Jacob's friend.

One night we drove into Santa Cruz and went to Maryanne's for ice cream. No...actually we went there two nights! It's the best ice cream!

Ice cream and cousins! Doesn't get much better then that!

Steve cooking us sour dough pancakes for breakfast. 

We went to the beach every day. It was so fun to relax and enjoy the beautiful sights and sounds of the beach. 

I am one happy girl when I can sit in the sun on a beach!

We loved watching all the seagulls and pelicans in the water. 

Love those seaweed dreads Steve!

We enjoyed a couple nights of campfires with Alan's family. We also played a couple epic games of "Werewolf".  

Alan showed us a funny game using a can of spray whip cream. You spray a ball of whip cream on the palm of your hand. And then you swing your left hand upwards and stop it suddenly with your right hand sending the whip cream high into the air and then you catch it in your mouth. This is where Steve's whip cream landed on his first try! Too funny!

Second try was much better! Such a funny game. 

Brooklyn had a lot of fun spending time with Jacob and Matthew and their friends. We didn't see much of her while we were there. 

As is tradition we went to the Boardwalk on Saturday night. We all got wrist bands so we could ride all the rides.

 It was a gorgeous night. 

The merry-go-round is one of the best ones ever with the rings you throw into the clowns mouth.

And a ride on the Giant Dipper roller coaster is a must!

Steve and I had a lot of fun at the Boardwalk.

Sunday morning we went to church with everyone. We only stayed for sacrament meeting then we hit the road to go home. We decided to leave on Sunday as we didn't want to hit the holiday traffic coming home on Monday. We drove straight through and got home around 3:00 a.m.  We were exhausted but so glad we went. Sometimes those spontaneous trips are the funnest.  Looking forward to many more trips to Santa Cruz to camp over Memorial Day weekend.