Graduation, Confirmation, and Our New Garden

We had a very busy, but fun, weekend.  We got home from South Carolina late Friday night.  On Saturday Jim had to work in the morning (a member died so he had to prepare for the funeral), then we attended the high school (West Michigan Lutheran High School) graduation, had lunch with our friends Jon and Sarah, and then that evening we had the service for the public questioning of our confirmands.  After that we ended up going out to eat with some church members.  What a day!  Then on Sunday, we had Confirmation during the service, a lunch afterwards, and then Grandma Sheryl came up to help us put in a garden.  On Monday, Grandma Sheryl, Lena, and I went shopping (I had four weddings and one new baby to get gifts for this month!), and then we met Jim and had lunch at Logan's.  Yesterday was our member's funeral.  It was really great that Mom was still in town.  She went with us and watched Lena while I attended the funeral service and helped serve and clean up the lunch that followed.

Here are a few pics I took over the weekend.

Lena and her best bud, Madelyn at the school graduation.  Lena and Maddie hadn't seen each other since Lena's birthday party!  At first they were a little standoffish with each other.  

Then they started warming up and moved a little closer. . . .

 

Then they really started checking each other out.

Then they ended up trying to kiss!  They are so funny together!

I think they were fighting over control of the "bench" here. 

Maddie hugging her daddy's leg.  I thought that was really cute.

Our friend, Jon, (Maddie's dad) gave the keynote address at the graduation ceremony.  This is a horrible picture, but it was the best one I got!  He gave a really nice speech.

Confirmation.  We confirmed three girls: (L to R) Emily, Nicole, and Grace.  They did a great job at the public questioning.

After the service, the parents of two of the girls held a party.  (The other girl is having a party next weekend.)  Grace's grandma made this pretty cake for the occasion.

We had a nice lunch.  It was a beautiful day for an outdoor party.

One of our members, John, came over Sunday afternoon to till up our new garden space.  We are trying the garden in a different location this year in the hopes that it will get more sun.  We discovered that we have really good dirt over here.

Mom and Jim did lots of pruning along the fence line in order to maximize sunlight on the garden.

Our new garden spot.  It's on the north side of the garage.

While Mom was pruning, she pulled out this really long vine thingy.  We got out the tape measure and it measured over 33 feet long!  Mom said she pulled on it and it just kept coming and coming and coming! 

Jim did most of the planting in the garden.  He planted corn, tomatoes, onions, carrots, lettuce, zucchini, Brussels sprouts, potatoes, yellow squash, and probably more that I can't think of right now.  

Thanks so much, Mom, for all of your help!  We couldn't have done the garden without you!  And thanks also for your help watching Lena at the funeral yesterday.  We enjoyed having you visit us!