Graduation Party

Today we had a great family activity where we partied in celebration of Natalie and Mack graduating from high school.  Hard to believe that we are at this stage of life.  It has all gone by too quickly.  Anyway, we got down to St. George for the scheduled festivities.  We arrived a little before 1 and then saw that others were just leaving Cedar.  That left us a bit of time before anyone else would arrive.  We ran over to iceberg and picked up some shakes.  I had promised the boys last night that we would get a treat as part of their helping me to clean the house.  Those shakes are quite large. We did not finish.  Jack and I got close but did not fully tip the scales.  We had a good time anyway.  Then we were off to laser mania where things started out pretty fun.  There was one of those power punching machines.  Jay had the record so I was told to challenge it.  I did and successfully took the record.  Then I got to punch it again and beat my record.  Each time you set a record you get an additional punch so I hit it a third time and was not successful in beating it a third time.  The boys gave it a shot and did pretty well. Jim had been providing some coaching secrets to help us all be successful in our punching.  He stepped up to the challenge himself and laid a serious right hook on the bag.  It was powerful.  Unfortunately the right hook sends the bag the wrong direction and he failed to even register a score. It was fantastic.  We had a good laugh.  He did straighten it up and then followed his own coaching advise and laid a pretty decent shot on the bag.  It did not best my score.  I went again and set another new high score but then could not keep it going.  Jay came back around and laid into it, my record was gone.  Fun stuff.  We had a total of 16 adults and youth to play laser tag.  We split up randomly as we entered the arena and had a great time.  Laser tag gets you moving a bit and the laser vest produces a bit of heat.  I felt like I got a lot more exercise then I actually did.  Anyway, we all had a good time.

For lunch/dinner we went over to the Brick Oven Pizza place.  I had never been there.  We got some special and ate to our hearts content.  It was pretty good, better than I had expected based on what I have heard about the place.  I do think I was expecting a different kind of pizza, more of a woodfired type as it is called Brick Oven.  It wasn't quite what I thought but I liked the deal we got there with a pizza buffet, salad bar, soup and homemade rootbeer.

We headed back to Cedar and went and hung out at the Main St. park for a while.  Had a little graduation ceremony for Nat and Mack.  Jay and I spoke, Nat and Mack spoke.  Clorinda gave them each a special medallion.  It was fun.  I sure do love the Nat and am proud of the effort she put forth to graduate from High School and Seminary.  It was not easy but she managed to get through it.

Grateful for family and the times we have together.