Saving China

Our whole life we have been telling Lindy, "My baby is all grown up and saving China!" (10 points if you can name that movie). It is really true now...except the China part. It is kind of crazy that my baby sister is graduated from high school and now my parents are going to be empty nesters. But we didn't mind a good excuse to come home and spend lots of time with family. The boys and I flew up to Idaho and Justin had to stay behind for 2 more weeks of classes. They were both so excited to fly. Koyle has been talking about airplanes up in the sky ever since.

The trip went pretty smoothly all things considered, except perhaps for the part where we had to squeeze all three of us in the airplane bathroom-twice, Koyle threw up in my hand, Matthew got huge blisters from his shoes and could hardly walk, Matthew spilt his Sprite all over the both of us, and the part where we left home at 7 am to drive to Dallas and didn't get to Boise until 10:00 pm only to discover that the boys bag was lost and wouldn't be arriving until the next afternoon. But really, it wasn't too bad. The boys got a little restless on the 2nd fight which was the longest but they did awesome on the 1st and 3rd. 

Monday morning we headed over bright and early to get things ready for the graduation party. We had a family lunch at noon and then the party started at 2. It was so fun to see family and friends again. The next day was the graduation ceremony. Lindy got to speak and she did awesome of course! 

She looks way taller than me here because she has heels on, but we are really almost the same size folks. It is still hard to let go of my claim as the tallest sister, but she does have me by a solid 1/2 inch or more.

SISTERS are the BEST!!

And so are Moms and Dads! Oh, and I am totally in love with this yellow dress Lindy was wearing. I might have to think of a good reason to wear it this summer; although I don't think I will look nearly as good in it.

My mom and I volunteered at the overnight party. We had LOTS of time to visit and catch up on life, and we were both so ready for bed by the end. I am not as young as I used to be.

I am excited for Lindy to start the next phase of life, and to see what kinds of things my parents will do in the next few years. I am also so grateful for my family and the chance I had to spend this happy day with them. Lindy said something in a prayer the day of the party that has really stuck with me. She thanked the Lord that our family lived close enough that we could all gather together for this occasion, or something along those lines. I think it struck a chord with me partly because I don't live as close as I would like and the rest of my family does but mostly it reminded me how grateful I really was that I was able to be there and not miss it; and how grateful I was that our family did live close together and we had always grown up with lots of family and support. Being with my family is like therapy for the soul...or something cheesy like that. I love them!