L's Graduation

Hey, guess who graduated recently?  Yep, my seemingly main-blog-fodder person--my "best girl ever" daughter L.  

 Of course, no self-respecting competitive girl swimmer would be caught without her cap for a race but I loved this shot for the vivid bursts of color--neon goggles, bright green grass, sparkly blue eyes, and vivid red suit (not to mention L's cute expression).

Here is L and one of her "besties" NB at the Sterling Scholar regional competition.  L graduated 5th in her class, NB graduated 3rd, and another bestie (see seminary grad pic, next) graduated 4th.  What smart, cute friends.

Here is L and one of her "besties" KH displaying their four-year seminary graduation diplomas.

 Here is our grad with her principal, both posing by the H after graduation exercises in May.

 Here is the family after eating our celebratory post-graduation meal.  We almost forgot to take a family shot at all!  Whew--glad I did remember after all.

 My sister's son T graduated at the same time (same school) as L did.  Years ago, my sister and I hoped that we'd have children the same age.  Who knew it would be a boy and girl?

 Here is T and his dad--his dad who gave us a big scare by needing heart stents put in just two days before graduation!

Here is my sis and T, post-graduation.  C (my sis) hates to have her picture taken.  Why??  She looks great!  She always did have all the looks in the family!  :0)

Here is L with all of her graduation "bling."  You can barely see it but she has on the white (look by her neck) National Honor Society collar. The gold rope (see on the left) is for being in the top of her class academically.  She is wearing three medallions: a medallion for being the high school's English Sterling Scholar, a medallion for graduating with honors ("Seniors Honors Diploma"), and a medallion for taking rigorous course work (Utah Scholar's Award--associated with the Regent's Scholarship).  She is also wearing a pretty flower lei from her good dad who is thoughtful like that.  The baby blue ribbon pinned to one of the medallion ribbons was worn by the seniors in remembrance of a classmate's mother who had passed away the day before graduation.

So here is our girl, poised to drive off into the sunset (aka drive off to college) this fall.  What will there be to blog about once she's "off and away" (to borrow a phrase from Dr. Suess!)?

Edna-sims, Part Thirty-five

1.  "Only a rat would leave a sinking ship."  She liked to say this to my husband when he would leave for work and leave Mom and me with my three pre-school kids.

2.  "Don't come crying to me."  I know this is a common phrase but I feel like I heard it so often in my childhood that it feels like one of Mom's inventions.  My dad said it a lot, too.

3.  "HOR-ROARS!"  This was a joking exclamation of horror, with the accent being on the second syllable.

Edna-isms, Part Thirty-four

Edna, front row, third from left.

1.  "Cuss and discuss."  This might be used in a sentence like this:  "We cussed and discussed whether our James should go to Las Vegas."

2.  "Harrumph egad!"  This was a cuss phrase.

3. "Foozled my beans."  This would mean something or someone had foiled her plans, like saying,  "Some one threw a monkey wrench into the deal."