End of an Era

And that's it, folks, our baby girl has officially graduated.  

There is so much time leading up to the big day, it seems drawn out in such an anticipatory and dreaded way and then boom, it's done.  The Sunday before she walked for her diploma 

was seminary graduation.  

Girl graduated seminary! Wahoo.  These are all the cute graduates from our ward. 

 Katelee pulled some strings and used her gift of persuasion to get into Bro Coleman's class for her last semester.  He is the seminary director at the school as well as a good friend's dad.  So, it helped her attend- also didn't hurt that Izzie was in the class.  

We moved to our current house when Katelee was 2 years old.  These three (Capri, Bre and Katelee)  have grown up on the same street- been together from joy school to high school.  Katelee is on the left below, then Rian, then Breanna and a bit of Emily.   Capri got cut out of that pic...whoops.  

They all developed their own interests and friend groups but it has been so fun to watch them grow into brilliant women! 

The morning of graduation, Katelee hosted a breakfast with some friends for her dad's famous pancakes.  We set it all up outside, Dave whipped out the pancakes and then realized he made them wrong...but we kept it hush hush.  Katelee can't eat them anyway, so the other kids just ate one and we were left with a bunch.  They prob were expecting something different and they would have been amazing if he made them as he usually does.  We still haven't told Katelee.  Anyway...they hung out, had breakfast, got dressed and we met down at UVU.  

We sat up high in our seats and hoped we would notice her and Izzy walking in.  Sure enough, we saw them bouncing with joy as they started in to the arena.  

The madrigals sang, the speeches were read, they were declared graduates, hats were thrown and memories were made.  We tried to catch a bunch of friends after for pictures, but it is pretty wild after.  

Lacrosse buddies-Madi, Suli (had to catch her with all her leis, Izzy and Katelee

What a wild ride high school is! Katelee really loved being involved in all the social opportunities it brought! She dated this cute fella a bit junior year-pretty sure his parents are still in love with her.  

He was part of a friend group called 'The Hoopers' that Katelee spent a ton of time with.  They were always coming up with wild ideas and she was right there along for the ride.  Katelee had a lot of friend groups and relationships evolved in good and difficult ways.  Teen years can be tough, but she def had a few gals that were there the whole way through.  

Berkely

Ellie fellow celiac head-who she has incredible adventures planned with this summer and beyond

and bestie Izzy, who Katelee has been inseparable with and we will miss so much from our house.  Izzy would come eat our leftovers, make us laugh and support our Katelee with genuine love.  This pic made us tear up as they sported the college they are each going to... an Aggie and Ute.  Fun things ahead but just a few tears for ending their Silverwolf Era.

We are so proud of Katelee.  She is fun, feels deeply, has grand plans and will accomplish them all.  I am going to be a mess when she leaves soon but I know she's ready to fly.  

It's a dang good thing she is attached to us for all of time because we would be lost without her.  We need something to balance the redhead scale of our home's inhabitants.  So, the ceremony was over and she moved on to all her plans of travel throughout the summer- Lake Powell and St George in June and more to come in July. 

The school year ended for the other two as well.  Harrison is done with 5th and Brenna wrapped up junior high! She is so excited to go to high school next year.  I will love seeing her there.  I don't usually get my picture taken for the yearbook because I don't care and no one is looking me up, but my coworker thought it would be fun to have a solo pic in the yearbook the year of her son's graduation (he graduated same as Katelee) and I thought, oh, maybe Katelee will love that down the road to see my photo in her year book not just my group pic with the other library workers.  So, I had my solo pic taken and here I am in her yearbook...

Yea, I think she will always remember she stopped in the library...for money, for a cry, to update me and now she may forget my real name.  

Katelee was not the only one who kicked off some summer travel right away.  Dave had a work trip in Dallas and I had never been to Texas.  So, I hopped on the plane with him and tried to get a quick taste of Texas.  

We did indeed get a big taste of Texas BBQ our first night.  We stood in line in dripping humidity amidst smokers the size of trucks to get in to Hutchins and it was worth it.  

That Texas Twinkie (jalapeno stuff with brisquet and wrapped in bacon) was all I could ever hope for...and truly all I needed to eat.  We shared this platter and then we shared our hotel bathroom in turns after.  We both are BBQ'd out for a year or two.  The meat sweats are real.  

We got to visit with Jordan, Ilka, Ella, Daniel, Matthew and Merrit.  That was so fun to catch up.  They all live in Dallas and hosted a dinner for us.  

I went on my own adventures while Dave was doing his conference for work.  I went to Magnolia.  That was so fun!  The food, the ambiance, the little road trip was great.  It was right by the Dr Pepper museum,

 so I payed homage to my beloved beverage.  I had a stop at Bucky's and agree it is the most fabulous gas station in all the world.  We experienced a storm with wind and rain and sirens- it was crazy.  Texas is cool (by that I mean neat...it definitely was excruciatingly hot) but the little bit of Texas I saw gets two thumbs up.  

We made it back home fully ready to use our summer to its fullest.  The kids and Dave signed up for the 4th of July race again.  I declined-the plantar fasciitis that developed after last year was enough to say one and done.  But seeing the ad in the city flyer almost made me rethink that decision...

 

What an inspiring ginger on the right there.   

Dave was called into the bishopric for the ward with Bishop David Davenport and 1st counselor David Jesperson.  Yes, they are all David's.  Yes the secretary is too- David Doane.  When we were called into the stake presidencies office, the president extended the call and then Dave said, 'you sure you can have two David's?"  President Kirkham grinned and said 'yep.'  We didn't even know Dave Jesperson was called as well.  No wonder there was a chuckle and smile when the stake president said that.  When their names were read in the ward, it was done with a bit of a pause so everyone could hear David each time.  

the D3 bishopric will do a great job.  

So, Dave will continue working with the youth in the ward but this time he gets to be with Harrison's age group.  

They went mountain biking 

where they enjoyed the sunset and view and Harrison ate it.   

 He was a bit embarrassed but he jumped right back on the bike, had a fab time and decided not to pursue mountain biking as a sport.  

On another trail later that month, we saw a ginormous rattle snake.  I took Harrison and Brenna up Big Cottonwood to meet up with my fam for a cookout.  Luckily Dave wasn't there because when he called and we sent the picture, he was sure we needed to evacuate the premises.

  The snake was stalking a lizard it looked like and Jaylee wanted us to save the little lizard.  Alas, we decided to put our health above the reptile and left nature to its own devices. Shannon and Grandma would not leave our campsite and were on high alert for the rest of the evening.  

 

And on another trail this month, my van was pushed up a mountain.  It was youth camp at the end of the month and the road leading to the cabins was steep and not ideal for a swagger wagon.  I had no idea it was rough terrain, I just got a text with this picture from my neighbor saying "they made it."

I tried to get ahold of my husband making sure the vehicle would still function and he reassured me all was good.  They had a great time.  I am excited Dave is in the bishopric so he can go on camps now (haha- he hates camping!) but also so I can stop in since I don't get to serve with the youth.  The bishop was out of town for bishopric night at Oakcrest girls camp and you bet I jumped at the chance to go see the gals and bring a treat.  

Maybe Dave will learn to love camping...no, probably not.  But he is enjoying time with the youth and it was so fun to be with Brenna and Harrison at youth camp especially since it was on his birthday!!   We still celebrated this ADP phenom the Sunday after 

with a rousing Bingo and treat night in our backyard with neighbors! 

Dave had a memorable celebration on his birthday and after, so here's to another year of life with DMac, another summer and a new era of only two kiddos in school! 

Our Lax Lady

And things are wrapping up in Miss Katelee's high school career.  Most of the next bit of pictures and entries will be about that...so I better throw in a couple of updates on the other people that live here..

Brenna is still working on recovery.  She skipped a couple of performances, which was hard on her, but was able to dance in the end of the year recital with a couple of modifications.  We are just happy she is up and moving again.  

Harrison still has plans for world domination as exhibited in our game of RISK.  He was channeling his inner Kaiser.  

He is really enjoying basketball this year- he finished up with his bantam team but still gets to play with is invictus club through the summer.  They have all become great friends and love doing it together.  They are all sorts of levels so we will see what happens next season.

 

Katelee's lacrosse season/HS career has officially come to an end.   

This girl picked up a lacrosse stick in 8th grade after bouncing around a lot of activities/sports-which we loved but couldn't put it down after.  

She had a couple of hard years of tryouts- being injured for both 9th and 10th grade tryouts.  She had broken her wrist right before tryouts and had to duck out that season.  It was so sad.  She pushed through a broken toe and loved playing her sophomore year and she has only said she wished she started sooner.  But girl got so good!!

Last year she got 2nd team all-region, this year she played strictly Defense...which she didn't love at first, but her team relied on her and she was the anchor back by our goal.  This year she made 2nd team ALL STATE!!!

She has already had the USU coach asking if she thinks she might be interested in playing in college.  She has big adventure/snowboarding plans so we will see about that.  But it is still so cool.

The team celebrated their seniors a couple weeks before playoffs.    Some of us parents sported shirts of our player and they are a big hit.  I probably will wear Katelee's face on my front weekly...especially when she moves away.  sniff sniff.  

Senior night was a fun night with some of Katelee's biggest fans!    

We have loved cheering this girl on and her cute friends too.  It has been the best having Katelee get to play with Izzy and they have become more than besties.  Buffy and I have been the bleacher cheerleaders/dancers.  So, good luck to the crowd next year.  

Riverton had a more challenging year with the team- just girl drama and situations that translated onto the field.  Last year they took region and made it to semi-finals...with expectations of playing (possibly winning) state.  This year we were blown away when we barely beat Davis in the playoffs to snatch a spot at semi-finals.  

Izzy made the winning goal and Shannon snapped a good photo of our reactions!  On to the next playoff...

where we fell apart at semis again.  It was a bummer and Katelee had mixed feelings about wrapping up.  

What a great experience lacrosse has been for our girl through high school.  

She learned she could do push through pain- boy was she bleeding and sore and broken a lot but she kept going.  Great life lesson there.  

She learned to believe in herself and be open to trying new things-lacrosse was never on our radar in her childhood.  

She learned to be teachable/coachable.  Katelee really wanted to be up on offense and she started out being able to play both sides but they knew where they needed her and she took one for the team, being where she was needed most.  Like we all come to terms with we have strengths to offer and can best be used sometimes where we don't even realize.  

She learned to laugh and enjoy the experience no matter what happens.  Some of her greatest memories are of the bus rides, the funny practices, the inside jokes, mic-ing up, dancing on the field to get hyped up.  We loved hearing all the starting lineup announced at home games- Berkely 'the Assassin' Elsasser, Reese 'Grease Lightning' Lewis, Izzy 'The Rizzler Blunck', Grace 'in your face' Jenson, to name a few.  

Katelee 'Shake and Bake' McArthur will forever be our most loved player.  

We learned that lacrosse is played during some of the most freezing conditions ever experienced.  This year the girls nearly had frostbite at one game with sideways blowing snow, it was a complete windy white out.  Their little fingers/toes/bodies were red and wind rashed. They were completely drenched and while we were miserable in our wet conditions, I couldn't imagine what they felt like.  

We learned that Utah has beautiful backgrounds and stadium lights are a great setting to be amazed by the earth's beauty.  

We learned to buy stadium chairs with a back, we learned that we aren't sad the next years of cheering on our kids at sports will mostly be inside (thank you basketball and dance...although there is talk of track and I know halftimes at football games).  But we mostly learned that we love cheering each other on and we will ALWAYS do that-rain, shine, heat, cold.  We will be the loudest cheering section whever life takes us.