Lorien's Graduation - Class of 2023

The time had finally come.  Lorien was officially graduating High School.  I was a mess of emotions.  My baby girl was all grown up & leaving the nest.  My heart knew it was going to miss her terribly, but at the same time, I was SUPER excited to see her go out & live her life & be amazing.  She is SO excited for culinary school.

I spent a week learning how to make ribbon leis & candy leis so I could make sure she got buried under them for graduation.  I wanted to show her how much I loved her & how important she is to our family.  It was fun to learn & I loved how they turned out.

Lorien was beautiful in her cap & gown.  I am so proud of her.

Graduation this year was at the big hangar on Ramstein Air Base.  Of course graduation would be near all the planes.  What a fun memory for Lorien.

I loved watching her walk in with her fellow graduates.  She was SO happy.

(She is at 4:10 in this video)

The program was very well done.  The entire program was done by the graduates.  They conducted, sang, spoke, & did a great job.  We are so proud of Lorien.

(Lorien walks across the stage at 00:35 in this video)

The best part of graduation was getting to walk underneath the swords.  She loved that.

After graduation, we adorned her with her leis & gave her the biggest hugs ever.  Sweet Canyon cried & cried.  He doesn't like it when his sister grow up & leave.  Taya was overwhelmed with the thoughts of her sister leaving, moving away from her friends, & now being the oldest & only girl in the house.  Her friends had a moment of tears together as well.  Lots of emotions.

And then of course we got lots of pictures of Lorien with her friends.  The first picture is her with her culinary team at RHS.  In the middle is her favorite teacher: "Chef."

After graduation, we all went out to dinner as a family.  Lorien's favorite is Mexican food so she loved every minute of Fiesta Mexicana.

It was such a wonderful evening together as a family.  Lorien, you're amazing, wonderful, smart, kind, beautiful, & just a good person.  We can't wait to see what wonderful things you do in life.  You make us so proud.  We love you.

 

Lorien's Scholarship Assembly

Lorien applied for SO MANY SCHOLARSHIPS this year.  Her sister did the same thing 2 years ago & got 0 scholarships.  I tried to prepare her by letting her know how competitive scholarships are these days.  I didn't want her to get her hopes up.

When she got the email from the school saying that she needed to be at the scholarship assembly, she got REALLY excited.  She knew she had gotten something, but she didn't know what or how much it would be.  ANYTHING was better than nothing.

Much to our surprise, she got TWO SCHOLARSHIPS.  The first was from a sorority on the base.  She laughed when I told her to apply for that one.  She thought she had to be a member of that sorority to get a scholarship there, but I told her the scholarships were for anyone so she applied.  And SHE GOT IT.  There were 3 prizes awarded & she got the 2nd level.  It was a $500 scholarship & she was THRILLED.

She also received one of the KMCC scholarships put out by the Enlisted & Officer's Spouses Clubs.  They collect money all year round from the bazaars & other spouse sponsored events on base, then turn around & give it back to the kids for college.  I love their program so much.  They awarded 60 scholarships this year & Lorien got one.

Her name is called at 00:34 on this video . . . 

Her name is called around 4:18 of this video. . . 

Much to our surprise, it was a big one.  She got the $2000 scholarship award.  She was elated about that.  It was a huge amount for the KMCC scholarship.  We are so proud of her.

She has the best group of friends!  They all took home several scholarships.  I love that when kids work hard & hang out with other hard working kids, it really pays off in the end.  These are the LDS kids at our school.  They all go to church together & are best friends.  While we were at the scholarship assembly, there were two men behind us as we were taking pictures of these kids & one man said to the other, "Who are those kids?  They got all the big scholarships!"  The man standing next to him replied, "Those are the LDS kids.  Those are the kids you WANT your kids to be friends with."  Hearing that from a complete stranger warmed my heart.  These kids ARE the kids you want your kids to hang out with.  They are honest, hard working, kind, exceptional kiddos.  I am so proud of every one of them.

Congrats Lorien!  You are amazing & we love you so much!

End of the Year Happenings

Whoa!  What a whirlwind of 2 months.  So much has happened since I last posted, but all of our things got shipped for our move & I haven't had a chance to be near a computer to update my blog.  I'll spend the next few weeks trying to catch up.  It's been an amazing 2 months so let's go. . . 

Taya finished up a full year of tennis lessons with her friend April.  They had a blast this year.

Trek got in all the bike rides he could before we moved.  We are truly going to miss the beauty of Germany.

The boys enjoyed their last few Young Men & Activity Days activities with their friends.

Trek & I were able to do one more goodbye dinner with the members of the stake presidency.  He has loved serving in the stake for the last 4 years & these friends have become family to us.  We are going to miss them so much.

And I finished off my assignment as the stake seminary supervisor by helping put together seminary graduation for our 30 amazing seniors this year, Lorien included.  I am so proud of her for graduating seminary.  These kids are amazing.  4 years of waking up at 5am & going to religious studies for an hour every day before school.  They are rock stars.