In random order of cuteness

Happy 2nd birthday William Douglas.

You've made the world a happier place.

Love, 
Whatever you decide my name is gonna be...

Maggie's graduation and the crazy car day

It seems pretty obvious I didn't get finished with Maggie's graduation post before I left town. We had a great girl's trip and got home Sunday and now I can focus on some posts. But there's a graduation party as well as a 2 year old birthday party as well as Easter just around the corner! So much coming soon! Also Owen's time in high school is dwindling down to just a few weeks and he and I are both ready for the end. It's been a fast and successful four years for him and we'll celebrate it as well as William turning two on Easter weekend. Two boys doing two very different things. 

But for now, let's get back to Mag's graduation and what a Tech grad looks like. I started this before I left, let's see what I said..... 

Our first ever attendance to a graduation ceremony at Louisiana Tech took place on March 1, 2014 when Maggie Camille got her much worked for diploma. As always, the seat holders got there early and waited for the ceremony to begin. It seemed to go as planned with no falls and no hiccups. Always a little disappointed about that. But the speaker was really good, a former Tech grad who was pretty amusing. But he spoke too long. Get it said and get out, that's my motto. 

I'd say it was a good day. We're now at 10 graduations attended in multi years. There are a few more on the books in the next few months. Then I think we'll be on hold for a few years til Owen graduates. 

Let's see what a Tech graduation looks like.

Different venue, but everyone always needs a chair. 

Clear in the front, blurry in the back. 

Killing time til it begins. 

Carrie's first graduation attendance. 

As many of us that can always makes a showing. 

Do they have a big stick of knowledge too?

There's Mags the grad!

Melded heads.

Everyone's in their places. 

There she is!

They can't take it back now, such a relief. 

These people were almost late. 

This started out to be a picture of me and Emma. 

But then I decided to cut me out because of the 10 chins I had. 

But as you can see off to the side as we were trying to get a good picture, Olivia seized an opportunity....

And took advantage. This is a multi layered photo with us in the front, Olivia in the middle, and Colby in the back...

And another photo bomb history....

Was made. 

And they DID have their version of the big stick. I'm not being a jerk, but that's not so much a big stick of knowledge, as it is a Ruston's homemade Olympic flame of knowledge. Epic fail Tech. Took me so long to come up with that lame analysis. I'm so disappointed in myself.    

Then it was family picture time!

Once more. 

Now we're on to groups. 

Once more again. 

Proud parents with their last college graduate. 

Plus Carlie. 

The "little girls" all grown up....sniff. 

Here's the breaking news about Tech's diploma! You get it right then and there! There's no mailing it later while you just get an empty cover at the graduation. Let me tell you that's aces people. Right then and there, diploma in hand wins the day.

Documenting that Whitney came too.

That's all the attendees. Pretty good crowd.

And lastly, the faithful photographers. 

And there's one more thing to discuss about the day. At the beginning of this post I didn't address the multi cars used to get all the people to Ruston for this most important event. Let me break it down for you car by car.

Turner's car: Randy, Melanie, Lydia, Carrie, Maggie and me.
Whitney's car: Whitney, Carlie and Emma.
Walker's car: Dale, Grandma and Mollie. 
Other Walker's car: Jared and Colby
A Herrcok car: John (who wasn't in charge), Caitlin and Olivia.

But going home from Ruston was gonna be a whole other matter for many reasons. I'm gonna sift through the tall grass and try to explain. 

As I mentioned before some of us left early in the Turner car, however I was expecting to ride home with my peeps in my big suburban. John and I didn't discuss it. I just assumed. You know what they say about that. Well, as the time for the ceremony was drawing nigh, it seemed certain my people were either gonna be late or get there just before the bell rang. Sure enough they marched in as the graduates were coming in. I was super annoyed but also unable to discuss their arrival or what car they came in. I didn't pop my top or anything. Fast forward to after the ceremony and the picture taking and the congratulating...we were making our way to the parking lot and I asked John where my car was parked and he casually said, "We came in Caitlin's." At that moment my head lifted off my shoulders, spun around rapidly 5 times before resting safely on my neck so that my piercing gaze could land upon my clueless husband's face hopefully burning a hole directly to his soul. Then I said, "How am I supposed to get home?" I asked calmly without any venom dripping from my words. (That may or not be true.) John was all like, "I didn't know." News flash....I've always known you didn't know. But after 29 years, it STILL annoys me. Also, I had NOT secured a ride in the Turner vehicle. I then turned my attention to making sure I had a ride home because......read on....

The home going went something like this....

Emma had to ride back to Monroe with Caitlin because Whitney was going to eat at Iron Cactus with her family and also because she was leaving town with John, Olivia and Maggie to go to Texas. (Exit Emma from Whitney's car and into Caitlin's.) Maggie, also going to Texas, had to ride in Caitlin's car as well. (Exit Maggie from the Turner car and into Caitlin's.) That meant 2 more people in Caitlin's 5 seater car than came in it to Ruston. 5 in a 5. Lydia and Carrie, also eating the cactus exited the Turner vehicle and into the Walkers' car. Carlie wasn't eating cactus so add her to the Turner car. The last time I saw Jared and Colby that day was as they were running as fast as their feet would carry them to their vehicle in order to escape the crazy switcheroo car thing. (That statement may or may not be true.) SO that left someone to ride on the roof of Caitlin's car (my vote was John) or me ride back with the Turners. After I punched John in the groin, I went with the Turners. Now that I've documented it all and relived it, I'm going to go wake John up and punch him in the groin again. 

OK, I'm back...

Sidebar: the Texas traveling people left together "quickly" because they wanted to get back home, change, regroup and get on the road as soon as possible. After we all had our new car assignments, we left for our respective destinations. Randy, Melanie, Carlie and I drove through the backwoods of Ruston to Whataburger and got a delicious lunch...and ended up getting back to our house at the same time as all the Texas traveling people. Not that it matters, except for they are all slow pokes. 

And that in a nutshell somewhat explains as confusing as possible, the events leading up to me remembering for the gazillioneth time, John's never been in charge. 

And somehow I made Maggie's graduation post more about me....or about my ride home. 

And now I'm going to bed.

It's 1:55 am on a Thursday morning. 

Do you know where all the graduates are?

If there's a wedding planned, someone needs a dress

I can barely remember what I did yesterday let alone last month. BUT! We did go to Dallas for wedding dress shopping in the month of February. It was a massive marshaling of the troops....or the females, except for Caitlin. Insert sad yellow face here. The rest of us made our trip to and from in spite of the terrible weather. It was icy and snowy and we fought through the worst storm in 50 years to get there. OK, that's not really true, but it was very very cold all the time. Multi cars, with people in them, made a mad dash to Dallas starting on Thursday, others arrived on Friday as we diverged on Becky and Keith's house making pallets in all corners of the house as winter raged outside. That sentence  sounds thesaurus laden, but I didn't use one at all. Caitlin had to stay home that weekend to study for many tests and she was a sad tigger. While face timing helps in those situations, it's not the same. And Keith very kindly, or for self preserving reasons, went to a hotel for the weekend. It seemed best. 

With varying arrival times, everyone went their separate ways around town on Friday, then met at Maggiano's that night for a late supper. After that it was home for a nap and out early the next morning. Mollie's first appointment was at 10:00 and all 14 of us went with the intent of looking inconspicuous. Good luck with that. And since I can't post any of the pictures of her in wedding dresses, just imagine a white/off white/ivory satin, lace, organza, beaded, plain, fit and flair, ball gown, mermaid, poofy, figure hugging dress and you have an idea of it. BUT! Breaking news, I MAY have posted a picture of her in her actual dress in this post. You'll just have to read and see. Anyway, the weekend was fun and fast. 

Let's look at the pictures in order to jog memories and see what we did. 

See? Snow and ice at Carrie's house. 

This was Friday afternoon when we were at Houston's and we thought those guys behind us were some sports people. They were not. 

Also on that Friday Lindsey was still pregnant and she was sweating due to the bun still in the oven. So we drove around town in 40 below temps, with the windows down and her in a tank top whilst I was freezing something off. I. WAS. SO. COLD. Also, she looks 17 years old. Thank God she isn't considering her condition. 

That night, Becky was unawares of being stalked by her nieces. Me thinks she needs to pay attention to her surroundings. 

Once at home, we enjoyed Carrie's great idea of getting heart shaped donuts to kick off the weekend in honor of the love theme. OK, there really wasn't a love theme but wedding dress looking equals hoping someone's in love. Somebody get the cheese whiz.  

All of these people were there to see Mollie in a wedding dress. 

Another view. 

There it is, the picture of Mollie in her wedding dress. Isn't it gorge? Gave your heart a little jump when you read that earlier didn't it? Come onnnnn. Did you really think I was gonna?

I want to attend THAT wedding.

That belly equals a 9 pound James just a few weeks later. 

Carlie's too cool for herself. 

This picture makes me laugh. 

Then something stupid happened.

I took my eye off my camera.

For just a sec.

And look who went ape ****

She went on and on and on.

And the whole thing is documented. 

I'm so observant sitting right beside and only 40 pictures later, snatched it. 

I revenge took a pic of her in a tiara.

But she got it back and went crazy again. 

There she is and there I am, not noticing.

The most important decision was over. 

Relief. 

Clicking clicking clicking...

With Maggie approving.

Whitney's clueless. Maggie's shootin air pistols. 

And nobody knew but those two.

It never ended.

There's the idiot sitting right next to her. 

Maggie's running out of hand signs and Whitney never got a clue. 

Carlie finally caught on. If we strung the pics together, we could make a movie.

Two people, maybe three now know it's happening. Unbefreaking. 

Then finally the idiot caught on....100 photos later.

And my revenge again was photos of her. Really stinging comeback on my part. 

She looked affected. 

I'm sure she learned her lesson. 

 

After the dress shopping, I went hat shopping, and Carlie was cruel again. 

And we caught this gorgeous sunset atop a parking garage. 

And we ended the night at Fernando's to celebrate.

And there it is, girl's trip for wedding dress shopping in Dallas 2014. It was fast. It was cold. And it was successful. What more could you ask for? Or for what more could you ask? One's correct and sounds stupid. The other isn't and sounds better.

Now we will all convene in June to see the dress in use for some amount of hours. It's gonna be beautiful!  

Well people I'll be heading west later today and won't be home til May. OK, that's not really true. I'll be home Sunday but the point is, there will be no postings until next week. Unless I knuckle down and do Maggie's graduation between now and bedtime. 

It's a slim possibility. 

I've currently lost my old glasses that I always have on standby. I hate my new glasses. 

OK I'm done. 

Moving onto another post and it's 12:34. 

You'll know if I finished because you'll see it. 

It's a cliffhanger....