Graduation Weekend

This weekend, our eldest nephew and niece graduated from high school.  We are very proud of them.  Congratulations Ryan and Erin!   

Ryan will be going to a technical school to get training in food services.  Erin was ranked #3 in a class of over 450 students.  She will be attending the University of Virginia in the fall majoring in neuroscience. 

The graduation ceremony went well - the speakers were entertaining/brief and they did a great job getting through all those students quickly. 

Samantha even did a good job getting through the 2 hour ceremony - there may have been some running around toward the end!

It was nice to spend time with Chris' family.  Although it was rough getting down there - Tropical Storm Andrea was not nice to the traffic on I-95!

Some other fun things we did this week included a sand play date, lakefront concert/picnic, and strawberry picking!  Samantha was great at picking strawberries. 

We ended up with about 3 pounds of strawberries so I decided to make some yummy homemade jam!  Then we ended up giving all but one jar to Chris' family when we saw them the next day.  I'll have to do this again soon!

The graduation was on Friday so we came home Saturday afternoon.  We didn't have much time or energy for much work on the house but we got a couple things accomplished.  Chris cut the grass (this seems to be a common theme over the last several weekends) and we hung curtains in the living room and dining room. 

The windows in the living room and dining room are extremely wide.  The ones in the living room are over 13 feet wide.  Since I'm not willing to spend over $150 for one curtain rod, we did the next best thing - we made them. 

We had to remove some old copper pipe from the heating lines in the basement.  They had some issues/holes so they weren't good for anything but scrap.   

 

 We had a couple nice long pieces - they were just right! 

So I cut them to the right length...

 

...cleaned and spray painted them, and then attached the ends that I bought from IKEA (nothing fancy but they are functional).  In order to attach the ends to the tubing, Chris drilled a 1" hole into each one and then I glued them on. 

After a lot of time spent with the iron, drill (to install brackets), and spray paint can, we have much nicer looking living and dining rooms (if you ignore all the toys and clutter)!

 

Now for some fun Samantha antics.  We found this old horse at the end of a neighbor's driveway that said "Free to Good Home."  Samantha has a lot of fun bouncing on it.

She is very particular about certain things.  The way she handles these play strawberries makes you think they're real!

Speaking of play food, Samantha has started giving her large stuffed dog some healthy treats - apples, carrots, and celery. 

Chris had to take this picture at the end of the day - he asked if this is what the house looks like when he's at work (and I had to say "yes").

One more picture - she loves to be spun in circles. 

I hope everyone has that look of pure happiness this week!