Then the banquet

The day after the graduation church service, the church held a banquet for the grads and their families. It was a big, fancy dinner and the graduates were really "sent off" with a bang! At the end of the speeches and such, the pastor had all the graduates stand up. He asked each one of them in which area of ministry they would like to serve, and made arrangements to put each of them through a crash course in that area so they could begin right away. Very cool. Here is a photo of the family and one of the youth pastor with Blair and Kate.

A major milestone

Blair turned 18. (Her nickname is Mickey, like the mouse, hence the cake.) I can't begin to explain how it happened. Last week she was five, sitting on her Daddy's lap being unbelievably silly, this week she is eighteen. On her cake is a mortarboard. She graduated from high school within two weeks of her birthday, and we had out-of-state relatives for the ceremony, so she said it was okay to combine the two parties.

The church had a special graduation service with a nice little booklet of the names and photos of the graduates. She got to walk across the stage and get a monogrammed Bible, and the pastors' message was geared right to them. We came home and had an ice cream cake and opened presents. The 'big' present was an iPod. She is so into music and has never had her own iPod before.