Bethany Graduates

Do you know the feeling when you are running around like crazy, trying to stay on top of everything?  When you don't even have time to think about what you want to do, rather it's just going from what has to be done to what else has to be done. 
Well, I am happy to report, that we are not there right now.  If I am being honest we live in that space for much of the year, so I am taking this moment to enjoy a bit of calm.  Well, relative calm.  Calm for us, anyway.

Bethany requested a night out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse with Abe and me to celebrate her graduation.  And by graduation we mean the end of her senior year of home school.  Hey, its a graduation of sorts!  We had wonderful conversation, looking back over her childhood and talking about what the future may hold at BYU Idaho.

 It's interesting for us to hear the perspective of the graduating senior on what they liked or appreciated about their childhood/homeschooling experience and what they think we ought to change and do differently with the younger kids.  The consensus between Clark and Beth is that we did well, but our strictness was a little much at times.  Even so, we better darn well be at least that strict with the younger kids!

We had a very simple, but very satisfying graduation BBQ for Rachel and Bethany.  Our two families are long time homeschoolers all the way through high school and Rachel's mom was a major homeschooling mentor for me.  Bethany's main childhood motivation to get her school work done was to be able to go play with Rachel and Kara when she finished.  It's been so wonderful to see them maintain their friendship over the years. 

Aren't they darling?

Games are always in order at a gathering of our families.

Here is a blast from the past.  Bethany, Rachel, Taryn, and  Mikayla at their New Beginnings when they were almost 12.

Here are three of those four little ladies all grown up, gorgeous inside and out, graduating, and ready for the next stage of life.  Pretty amazing how that happens.