A Grand Graduation Party

Rachel's Grandparents hosted a Grand Graduation Party for her this past Tuesday evening.  The date was carefully chosen and marked on everyone's calendar.  Nonnie and Poppie worked so hard to redecorate and landscape their already beautiful backyard to make the party place perfect.  Tuesday finally arrived and the weather looked like this:

No, that is not your typical gorgeous west Texas sunset-that is dirt and smoke and high winds.  The weather was awful...kind of matched how I felt about the upcoming graduation.  Okay, not really.  I am over the top thrilled for our daughter and so proud of her...but the years flew by way too quickly.  I want to go back to the days of Rachel dressing up like Pocahontas and singing "Colors of the Wind" at the top of her lungs, and me joining her singing only for a short while before she would always say, "No sing, Momma! This my song!"

 
Days where we had to order a bowl of maraschino cherries as an appetizer whenever we would eat at a restaurant. And speaking of eating out, we ate at Rachel's favorite place last night, Olive Garden, and she didn't need us to order the cherries for her anymore. {Sob!} 


So even though this momma's heart of mine is saddened to see how quickly the years have gone, I am so proud of the young lady that Rachel has become and her daddy and I and our family will be cheering her on tonight.  Speaking of tonight, she has the blessing of giving the welcome speech.  Please, pray for her at 8:00 tonight if you think about it.  She read the speech to me over the phone and we both cried.  What a precious gift she is!

Okay, so back to the party, thanks for taking that little detour down memory lane with me.  The weather didn't stop the party one bit.  Many of Rachel's friends joined all of her Aunts and Uncles, Grandparents, parents, sister, and cousins to celebrate:

The food was absolutely delicious! My mother-in-law is a caterer, I think I've told you that before. She prepared all of Rachel's favorites: mashed potatoes, chicken, green beans wrapped in bacon, rolls with butter, my mom made Rachel's favorite layer salad, Ooey-gooey cake, and Strawberry Pie and so much more. Delight!

Sweet friends and family....special memories!

Having all of them there was gift enough, but many generously brought gifts anyway.  I think the picture of Nonnie passing out the Popsicles is so sweet.  Nonnie loves having her family over and she goes to great lengths to make sure she has just what everyone could ever want or need even down to favorite Popsicles.

These next two pictures make me grin from ear to ear!  Little Wes wanted me to follow him with my camera.  He found a rock and wanted me to take his picture.  This is the pose he gave me, all on his own.  Love it!  Hello Mr. GQ cover man!  His cousin Austin watched and waited and then he told me it was his turn.  Delight!

One of my favorites from the evening! This is Rachel with all of the little cousins:

 Ray-Ray with her Aunt Sissie and Uncle Jeffey:

These are Nonnie's sisters: Aunt Robbie, Aunt Bobbie-O-Kay, Rachel and Aunt Margie.  The next one is Rachel with the cousins.  Jaclyn and Laci were in my wedding 21 years ago...they  are all wonderful mommas and amazing women.

Rachel with the Grands!  Poppie, Nonnie, Rachel, Granny (she use to call my mom "My Ganny!") and Grandpa (or G pronounced "Guh" as she use to say when she was little).  The second picture is of us girls.  Aunt Sissie, Nonnie, Rachel, me, Hannah, and Granny....my most favorite women in this world.  What a wonderful heritage of faith my girls are so blessed with!

I set my camera and handed it to Mr. Incredible to take my picture with Rachel.  He had fun with my camera.  He started acting like me...you can see from the bottom picture that we were all giggling at him.

What a special, special evening...it was "Grand" in every way!  Thank you sweet family for your generous gift of love...ya'll are such a blessing to us!