June 23rd Graduation Party & June 30th Zoo

I went and spent the night at my sister's the night before my nephew's high school graduation party. We always have so much fun! We got a late start because that was the day I picked my best friend up from the airport. Are we starting to see a pattern here? :) After I got to my sister's we actually decided to go out to dinner before we started cooking for the next day. I made pasta salad for 80, set up my chocolate fountain, and made 80 graduation caps out of chocolate covered graham crackers, mini Reece's peanut butter cups, and fruit roll ups. It was a LONG night and little sleep :) We took our last load to the church to use their refrigerator at midnight. The next morning we arrived by 9am to decorate, get the drinks on ice and set up food. I was of course going over pictures in my mind :) It was a great party. lots of good food with family and friends. The boys came out that morning. It was the first time they were home with me gone over night. They did really well. Older son DJ ed the party. One little boy at the party ended up putting his fingers in the chocolate fountain and just eating from there. I tried to get him to use his plate and let the chocolate drip on that and wanted to help him wash his hands, but he liked his way better. The adults pretty much stayed away from it after that :) I did get a cute picture of him with his chocolate hands.

I was glad to get home after the clean up. Milo was sure glad to see me!

That brings us up to last Saturday! Can you believe it! Is anyone still reading?? I took younger son to the zoo. We haven't been in awhile. Older son spent the night at a friends, so he didn't come with. We are members, so we get free parking, admission, 4 tickets to the dolphin show and 4 tickets for the trolley rides around the zoo. When we arrived we went right to the dolphin show. We had about a half hour until it started. We got our seats and waited. The dolphins play around before the show so we were able to see that too. The dolphin show has always been one of our favorites. Next we went to eat lunch. Lots of people, long lines and average food, but we were really hungry by then. Afterwards we saw two new exhibits. The had a stingray exhibit where you can go in and pet the stingrays. Kevin loved it. You could stay as long as you wanted. You had to be patient and wait for them to come to you. Younger son had many go past him. When you come in they ask you to roll up your sleeves and was all the way up to your upper arm. On the way out they had more water and drier areas so you could wash when you were done too. The next exhibit was my favorite. It was a small structure that housed butterflies. Beautiful butterflies. I want to go back during the week when fewer people are there and take more time taking pictures. I am getting 6 of the pictures I took made into 5x7's and framing them for my bathroom. My colors in there are a light peach and foam green. I think the butterfly pictures will look nice.

Now we are at yesterday. I took the kids to the show to see Ratatouille, It was cute. Then we went to lunch. The rest of the day the boys just did stuff around the house. I wrote letters to my chemo patient, senior patient and my child I sponsor. I sent some zoo postcards and my chemopatient is a little girl who likes penguin's. I found a penguin box that opens with a necklace of a penguin! It was too cute and reasonably priced. Younger son talked me into buying him a tee shirt that said, "I Survived The Cicadeas Invasion 2007" It was funny, if they had my size I may have bought one for me too :)

Today we all slept in late. Older son and I stayed up late watching all three Die Hard movies. We have never seen them before. We wanted to see the new one, but want to see the others first. Kevin volunteered at the library and then went swimming with a friend. We joined a pool for the summer just a few blocks from our house. I have been going at night with younger son too. Today I stayed home to finally get my blog caught up.

My newest project is to make a family and friends cookbook dedicated to my grandmother. It is a little more involved then I though :) Isn't that always the way! So any special recipes, just let me know. I am guessing this will take months so there is no hurry. I am still looking into which company to go with. The last couple of days I have been going through all my grandmothers recipes. Hundreds of them. I am ready to start looking through mine too.

I think that catches me up!