IL Part 3

Sunday after the party, we all went out to dinner and then back to Grandpa & Grandma's. That night, I went home with Andrea. I worked from their place on Monday and Tuesday.

Tuesday night Andrea & Heather had a surprise party for David & Evan.

This was David's cake! A coworker of my mom's cousin made it for us.

David really enjoyed it (along with everyone else!)

Evan's cake

Grandma and her brother, U. Gene

Wednesday morning, we left IL and headed to IA to see U. Alfred and A. Barb. They moved to IA in 2007 and this was my first time seeing them since then. Thursday was U. Alfred's 75th birthday so we had a small party.

That day at the nursing home, a few ladies came and sang/played instruments. They sang happy birthday for U. Alfred. Then we all had cake that A. Barb had gotten.

Friday we headed back to IL. Evan and I were dropped off at Heather & Andrea's. Mom, Dad, David and Carla went back to Grandpa & Grandma's. They headed home on Saturday.

Evan and I stayed in Eureka for Memorial Day and got home late Monday night. 

IL Part 1

Way back in May, we went to IL for a little over a week. On the way out, we stopped and stayed one night with Grimm's.

Julia is learning to play the harp, so we played a couple songs together.

Part of our family and part of theirs :)

After leaving the Grimms, we drove to David's house to meet up with him before heading to graduation. This was the plaque that Mom, Evan, and I made for David's graduation. David had ordered the verse through Simply Said, but we had never gotten around to doing anything with it. Mom's goal was to get it done before he graduated.

Waiting for graduation to start

There he is! (with his hat cut off)

The students are on the right and teachers and whoever else is on the left

Getting "hooded"

Pics after the graduation

David and one of his close Brittany friends (there are 2 of them and I don't remember which one this is :)

David's Welcome Home Video

Last night Mom & Dad went to the airport to pick David up. Evan, Carla, and I stayed home. As soon as they left we dressed up in black bottoms and white tops. We all had nametags on. Mine and Carla's said our names and Evan's said Nobody. Mom gets teased a lot about David being the favorite kid and that she doesn't remember Evan. :)

I'll just let the video speak for itself :)

October Birthdays

We celebrated 3 birthdays in October. Carla turned 15 on the 8th. One more year of people being safe on the roads and sidewalks! ;)

David turned 26 on the 19th. Not sure what we did for that...maybe sent something in the mail, send a text saying Happy Birthday. No pictures of this one. :)

Mom turned 48 on the 30th. Mom and Dad went out to dinner that night, so Carla and I went to the grocery store and bought an ice cream cake and a balloon. We also bought this cute birthday hat for her to wear. :)

We used these leftover pieces of crepe paper from another birthday and taped them to the light over the table.

I found a kid's Happy Birthday song on a cd we have, so we put that on repeat and really loud. When Mom walked in, Carla and I sang along with song. Very loudly and just a little off tune :)

As another little surprise for Mom, I got David on Skype so she/we could talk to him.

He even got to help us sing!

Arizona Part 3

The last post of Arizona pictures! On Saturday we hiked the Seven Falls in Tucson.

This picture is for Evan

We rode the tram up as far as we could and then started walking on the trail. I forget exactly how long it took us, but it was around 7 miles. We started a little later in the day, so we missed the last tram ride back down so we walked the last 1.5 -2 miles on the road.

Getting near the top!

Trying to climb up the rocks. She saw a couple sitting farther up the waterfall and wanted to get up there too. After she was pretty soaked she found out there was a dry way to get up there :)

David relaxing on the hard rocks

First self timer with the camera. Should've seen me running back and forth :)

We made it back! ;)

Sunday night we went out to dinner to Pinnacle Peak. If you wear a tie, they cut it off, so Andrea wore one :)

After dinner, we went back to the house for a while and then we (us 4 "kids") decided to go out for frozen yogurt.

Just a couple shots before I left for the airport.

My flight left at noon from Tucson and arrived in Bradley a little before midnight. It was a quick adjustment from warm to cold and vacation to reality! Tuesday morning I had a quiz in my 8 am class. I didn't get much sleep that night since I got up at 6, but it was totally worth it!