Graduation Party!

For Audra's graduation party, we combined with other members of our ward graduating. It ended up getting bigger and bigger and including kids from 3 different wards and 2 high schools. We were expecting 250 people. There were 10 kids total. Two girls branched off and did their own party, which was fine, but I am glad we stuck with the main group.

With so many kids involved, that meant each mom only had to do a little bit of work. I was in charge of drinks- which meant buying a whole bunch of soda, water, and ice. I could handle that!

We had the party at the Roper's house. We were worried about terrible weather, but thankfully the weather turned out wonderful. The party turned out wonderful. It was simply perfect.

One other thing we had to do was 100 "favorite cookie" bags. Audra (and each of the kids) was turned into a cartoon. Each kid chose their favorite cookie to hand out to guests. Now, I didn't really let Audra choose. I needed something easy. Did you notice we had 2 Birthdays in addition to this insanely crazy week?!? It was a lot. So, we did mint brownies, and then cut them up into really small bites so we could get 100. It was perfect.

Isn't she so cute as a cartoon?

Her part of the table set up

It was awesome! I really thought of this party as a celebration of all of the wonderful people who have helped us raise Audra. What an incredible community we have- we are so blessed!

Graduation!

Everything led up to this moment, and still it was unreal to be happening. 

As I was getting ready today, I had the thought: In 1st grade, Audra came home from school and said, "mom, I'm stupid. I'm in the lowest reading group." And tonight, she walked across the stage a Valedictorian.

We have been through a lot between 1st and 12th grade. It took a long time for Audra's confidence in school to come out, and I attribute the turnaround to homeschooling, but she worked incredibly hard, got lots of tutoring when needed, worked with Ben literally for hours every night with math, and graduated with a 4.3-ish GPA. She's pretty incredible.

It was a glorious day- minus getting in and out of DU. But, I am very glad they hold it at DU, no matter how hard it was to park and to leave at the end. But, outdoor graduations in Colorado are stupid because you never know how bad the weather can be. Sometimes it can be great, but mostly the weather will be rough. So I'm glad it was indoors.

Anyway, they did a great job. The graduation was beautiful. It was less than two hours, with just a couple of speakers who spoke for less than 5 minutes. The longest part was the presentation of the diplomas, which one would expect to take awhile.

My principal was sitting on the stage and took this picture. Isn't it awesome?

                                   

Graduation started at 6 PM, but Claire and Audra needed to be there at 4 for band/orchestra. Our last time watching our girls play together. It made for a weird eating schedule, but we went to a late lunch at Piccino's at 2 PM before heading to DU.

 

It was a great day to celebrate our favorite Audra! (even if I did tell my other girls to just drop out of school now so we never have to go through all of this again! It's A LOT!)

Photo Dump of Our Graduate!

Evan, Adaley, Emily, Audra, Dallin

Josie, Audra, Dallin, Evan, Emily, Adaley