Friday, May 28, 2010

Friday's Fave Five #90



It's the start of a beautiful, hot, long weekend here in the heartland of America.  Before heading out to celebrate the first holiday weekend of the summer, let's look back to the highlights of this past week.  Join Suzanne at Living to Tell the Story and share your favorites!

1. Friday night, we watched our second daughter, Alexa Janae, graduate from high school.  It was a bittersweet moment seeing her accomplishing a milestone as a young adult, yet sad that the adorable toddler was no more. Yet we have 18 years of memories, and with the advent of digital cameras, tons of pictures of her teen years.
Here she is as a baby.


Adorable toddler holding her new baby sister, Malia.


One of her senior pictures


Janae in her cap and gown in a group.
(I've got more pictures on my camera but haven't transferred them in time for this post!  Bad mom!)


2. On Saturday, Jim and I took a drive to a place called Garden of the Gods.  What beautiful scenery!  I just wished it was named Garden of the One True God!  It is a great place to take pictures.
You won't believe where I was standing to take this picture!
I was worried that I would become dizzy and fall.  Did I mention I have a fear of heights?





This is called the Devil's Smokestack
(Who names these things?)
I don't know if you can tell, but my hubby is standing at the base of the smokestack.  Unfortunately, his clothing blends right in.  He should have worn red!

Here he climbed up and sat in this opening.

I just love taking pictures of God's creation!


3.  The rest of the week, I managed to get some things done around the house.  I had found a lot of goodies at the first yard sale of the year, but had not found places to put them!  I also had to get rid of a couple things to make room.  Decluttering is always good, and always a favorite thing of mine to do.

4.  One of my yard sale treasures was a pair of shutters (actually a bifold door made out of two long shutters). My sweet hubby took them apart and painted them and hung them up in our bedroom for me. It seems that having shutters on the INSIDE of your home is fashionable now.  I just wanted to hide some holes in the sheetrock!  Anyway, I think they look very interesting and it only cost $5 for the shutters and about $12 for the paint.  (Sorry, didn't think to take a picture yet.)

5. 24 years ago today, I became a Mother for the first time.  Elissa Joy's birthday is today and totally a highlight in my life. I am proud to be her mama.


Here she is at about 18 months.


Here she is today, doing one of her favorite things - driving her car!


Okay, that's been my week!  Hope you had a great one as well.  Link up here at Susanne's and share!

17 comments:

  1. What a great week! Congrats to your graduate and happy birthday to your firstborn...

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  2. Great pictures this week. Congratulations on all your girls! They are beautiful.

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  3. Garden of the Gods is beautiful. I'm in awe that you got close enough to take those pics. I would have been standing WAY back and using a telephoto lens. Your girls are lovely. Congrats on the birthday and graduation.

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  4. I just love all your pictures of your daughters! We're doing that graduation thing, too -- this coming week. All the family is coming in. It'll be so much fun.

    Pass congrats along to your graduate.

    Happy weekend.

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  5. What a great week of celebration at your house! Congrats to the graduate and best wishes to the birthday girl! What a great place to hike around and yes whether they call it the right thing or not we know who created it!! :0)
    It is wonderful to see and enjoy what God has created for our pleasure...
    Happy long weekend to you!

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  6. Happy Birthday to Elisa Joy and congratulations to Janae. Sounds like a wonderful week for your family.

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  7. Looks like you have had some wonderful family celebrations. Isn't if fun to have digital?
    I love decluttering...sounds silly but it feels so good to get that all cleaned up again. Good on you!

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  8. Happy birthday to Elissa Joy and Congratulations to Alexa Janae! My oldest two have graduated from both high school and college, and it's such a mix of joy and wistfulness.

    Garden of the Gods looks beauitful -- I agree with you about the name!

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  9. What a wonderful week you had..Garden of the Gods sounds like a wonderful place to be..I would love to be there

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  10. Congratulations to your daughter and Happy Birthday to your other daughter! I also enjoy taking pictures of God's creation; in fact, I have a photo blog at http://wondersbeyondwords.blogspot.com/ .

    Thanks for your prayers and have a wonderful weekend!

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  11. You're not a BAD momma, you're a proud momma!! Congratulations to the graduate girl AND to the birthday girl! The scenery of the place you visited is breathtaking, but I don't think I would have liked to stand there, it looks awfully high and I have fear of heights too!
    Looks like a wonderful week and I hope your weekend is great too!

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  12. What an AWESOME Week!!!

    Great Milestones and Wonderful Senery.

    I have never understood where they get the names of some of that stuff either!

    Hope you Memorial Day weekend is Great!!

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  13. Love the pictures of the walk through time with your daughter(s). A bittersweet time to watch them graduate and grow up. I have a fear of heights, too, so I’m super impressed where you were standing!

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  14. What a busy and lovely week you've had. Happy Birthday to Elissa Joy and Congratulations to Alexa Janae. They sure do grow up fast, don't they? They're beautiful young ladies now, Jerri! You must be very proud.

    That park looks just beautiful! One does wonder who thinks up the names for them.

    The shutters sound interesting. You'll have to share a picture of it.

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  15. Congratulations to your grad and happy birthday to your first born - both beautiful girls.

    The 'garden' looks like an absolutely gorgeous place to visit! Great photos.

    Hope you have a wonderful holiday tomorrow and that it is much sunnier than our Monday is shaping up to be. :)

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  16. Love all the pictures!

    Oh, I have three girls and I can just tell already how fast the coming years are going to go! Mine are 8, 2, and 9 months and it's already flying by.

    Thanks for stopping by my blog from Random Dozen! ;0)

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  17. a great fam with lots of milestones!
    and i love decluttering. it feels so good...once it's done!

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