we are finally finished with high school !

Tonight wraps up a lot of achievement, so if you are not an aunt, or a grandma . . . . you might not be interested in the following bit of bragging. Actually, even if you are an aunt, you might not be interested either. Melanie graduated from seminary the other night.  Seminary students from 4 stakes gathered to get their certificates.  Just before evening began, I looked at the program and said -"Look, Rachel, some of the students from your ward are getting their certificate from Institute tonight too.   Wait . . . . YOUR NAME IS ON HERE! Are you graduating from Institute?"  Apparently she finished the required classes, but didn't know they actually present you with something.  Dave tried to coax her to go out and line up with the other students who were about to walk in. "Dad, I am NOT going to sit with all the 17 year old seminary students."  Anyway, we ended up with 2 graduates that night.

Tonight, Melanie graduated from High School. Yay -- we are done with high school!

Then to top things off, I got a forward on this e-mail today:

Dear Roxanne Hale,
It is a pleasure to inform you that you have made the Dean's List of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences for Spring semester 2012.

HOOORAY!!

I thought we were going to slow down for the summer, but Roxanne is working full time and taking two accelerated classes,  Brady is taking 2 math classes this summer also while working full time, and Rachel starts in on her summer classes soon too while keeping up with almost 20 music students, Melanie has 2 part time jobs and is trying to fit in girls camp, EFY and Youth Conference.  Everyone is full steam ahead and in a hurry to get through college.  Roxanne plans to finish her Bachelor's by December (yay! 3 1/2 years!), Rachel will finish her Masters next May, and Brady is moving along just as fast as he can.  Melanie starts college in the fall and has 3 good examples to follow.  All four will be in college in August.  This hasn't happened before, when Melanie started grade school, Rachel was already in Middle school.  Now they will all be peers.  Melanie and Brady have a bit of a feel for that now.  They realized they both had the same math teacher this semester.  He taught high school by day, and college by night.

I think I might miss school a little bit.  Dave was reminscing about how many times he sat on those hard bleacher seats sweating through a football game in the blazing hot temperatures when the season started in September, and freezing watching soccer in January. We've enjoyed Winterguard and marching bands and drum lines and concerts and plays and graduations. The first time we attended a music concert at the Jr College, we realized how much we enjoyed the evening, not just because Rachel is an amazing performer, but because all of the students performed so beautifully for a perfectly entertaining evening.  At last, it was worth it to sit through all those 6th grade music concerts, and enduring beginning lessons of various musical instruments around our house.  I love to go to performances out at ASU now and enjoy the professionals. I think I might enjoy college life vicariously these next few years.  

And THANK YOU Jennifer for taking all the great photos tonight!