Anna’s Graduation and Father’s Day

On Saturday I went back home to see my little sis graduate high school. Sitting there watching her walk across the same stage as I did 9 years ago almost to the day was awesome.

And knowing that she will be doing it again, on a different stage that I also walked across, in 4-5 years was even better! I am so proud of her and all her hard work. I was nostalgic and slightly wished that I could go back to those easy, carefree high school days (not really). I just know that Anna will go on to do amazing things and that this is her first big step to accomplishing all her dreams. She has decided to declare her major (she originally was going to do a science exploration program) and she has chosen…. Biology! Way to go Anna! Anna and my parents...All us kids (and my nephew Ethan). From left to right you have Britta, me, Cassy, Anna, Chris and then Ethan.

And of course we had to abuse her a little :)

My adorable niece Jade and nephew Ethan. This picture is so cute!

Brit and my handsome nephew Braydon.

After graduation we went to dinner at Spaghetti Warehouse (perfect for my Italian family) and it was delicious. We also presented Anna with the brand new laptop that everyone contributed to and she was ecstatic! I left soon after dinner because I had a long drive back home and some major baking and prepping to do before our party. But I did not leave before Anna and I had time to beat Dad, Britta and Wayne (Cassy’s fiance) at pool. Don’t ask us how, we thought we would suck! Me and Anna and Brit, love this pic!On Sunday Frank and I were up early again (Saturday we were up at 5:45 to hit the Farmer’s Market, Sunday we were up at 6) to finish our final preparations for the party. Our menu? Drinks: lemonade, soda, beer, wine and margaritas. Appetizers: cheese and crackers, a veggie tray, Eric’s delicious bruschetta, cheese dip and smoked shrimp on rosemary sticks which were a huge hit! Lunch: chicken marinated in either Italian dressing or Chiavetta's BBQ sauce, hamburgers, hot dogs, green salad, pasta salad, potato salad, cherry junk and corn on the cob. Dessert was the best though. I made a lemon cake with raspberry filling AND banana split cupcakes (with layers of vanilla, strawberry and chocolate batter). Everyone was stuffed when they left! We had so much fun but I didn't get many pictures because I was too busy hanging out with everyone. Next time we decided we will give Kirst the camera because she takes awesome pictures. It rained (apparently rain on Father’s Day is our new family tradition) but we didn’t care. We had over 20 people at our house, almost half of them kids, but it was awesome! My niece and nephew and cousins all ran around like crazies with Taelyn following right behind. The kids loved the cats and played with them for hours. Brit and Kirst are new BFFs. Adam, my brother Chris, and my cousin Patrick were the little 11ish year old gang that didn’t stop moving or eating all day. Jo fell in love with my Father and Step-Mom after a few minutes, some cracker bribes, and monster fingers from my Dad :o) And Eric and Nikki were there to keep us relatively sane!It was an exhausting weekend, but wonderful because we got to spend so much time with our family. Frank got the best Father’s Day present from the kids, they picked out a beautiful photo album and printed out a bunch of our pictures and started the album for him. He was so excited to take it into work! We also got him tickets to see the Bills play Miami November 29th. I can only imagine how cold it is going to be so we will need something to help us stay warm (I heard vodka could help?!) This will be our first Bills game together so we are super excited! I hope all the fathers at our house on Sunday had a wonderful day. Frank, Dad, Grandpa, Uncle Paul and Wayne - Happy Father's Day!

Kirst went to Boston on a school trip about a month ago and she had taken one of our cameras and I just downloaded all the pictures from the camera. This one is my fave from her trip... She must have taken hundreds of pictures of Fenway for me, but this one is great...

And some more pictures from a month ago when we took Kirsten and Adam to play Putt-Putt (or as they call it, mini-golf). Frank won (probably smoked the rest of us, I can't remember) but it was one of the first nice days of the summer so we just loved being outside!

Adam, Frank and I also went on the go-carts. This was as we were stopping at the end, about 2 seconds before I crashed into Frank (because he had hit Adam and I like 100 times) and got yelled at by the 16 year old boys running the place. We're just that cool.... ha.

Dork...

Hair blowing in the wind.

And our final update. One year ago today we got the call about Ruby and her kitties from Kirsten. We have had our Rubers and Momee for one whole year now! Our beautiful girls!