Bentley's Graduation

Tuesday, June 4th, was graduation day for Bentley!  I actually had to go to work for a few hours, which sort of stressed me out.  But I managed to get home before he left to take pictures with his friends.  I'd been meaning to iron his gown, but we'd let it steam in the bathroom and I decided it looked pretty good.  I hate ironing, and I was afraid I'd just melt the stupid thing, so we left it as is.  It looks fine, right???

Just the gown

This might have been how he was actually feeling...

And with his mortarboard!

Then he left to take pictures with his friends.

I'm not sure who decided the girls all needed to wear white dresses, but that's fun.  (Bentley did not wear crocs for the actual ceremony, just for the record!)

{Sigh}  It's a Virginia thing.  And a teenage boy thing.  

We headed to John Paul Jones Arena plenty early with Tom and Donna, and managed to find Bentley and take a few pictures before he headed inside!

(Kendra is missing because she had to get there early and play with the band)

This pretty much sums up how Bentley feels about hugs

The ceremony was mostly long and boring, but we sure enjoyed screaming for Bentley as he was presented with his diploma.  Our friends the Huffs, Rawlins, and Adam had all come, and it was so lovely to have everyone cheering for him with us!

There's Kendra playing "Pomp and Circumstance" ad nauseum!

Look at all those seniors

We got a nice friendly wave from Bentley when he first entered the arena and spotted us!

Waiting for his diploma

My Mom took this picture of Bentley getting his diploma as she streamed it in Seattle!

And exiting the stage

A lot of Smiths and Huffs all mixed together here

More Smiths and Huffs, plus Adam, too!

A real hug!

We made it out of the parking lot with (nothing to see here, move along) and headed to Five Guys for dinner.  I was afraid the place would be packed, but it was completely empty!  So that was nice!  And by then it was perfectly pleasant sitting outside, so a great time was had by all!

Finally, we got the Rawlinses in some of our pictures!

Peter always manages to crack Bentley up, so he requested a picture with him

Gideon and Colton are always buddies

We finally headed home, said good night to Grandma and Grandpa, put the little kids all to bed, and then watched TikToks with Bentley until way too late.  Then Craig and Kendra and I all headed to bed, and Bentley went with his friends to celebrate by hanging out at Cook-Out.  Classic!

What a day!  Everything went really well, and I was exhausted by the entire thing.  

June, the Beginning

June dawned with a sparkly clear morning and as I was getting ready, Craig was trying to put back together the sink in our main floor powder room, and Adam popped by to collect Colton and Camille for the day.  Craig and I were taking the youth up to the *DC temple to do baptisms!  I have to admit, I was not looking forward to making this drive again.  But it went fairly smoothly (only one time where we almost hit the car in front of us and had to veer towards the shoulder just in case!) and it truly was a gorgeous day.  And it was fun to get updates from Adam of all the fun things they were doing.  In fact, I'll just cover those first!

First, he took them to the farmer's market, where they got very nutritious food!  😁

Only the healthiest of foods for my kiddos!

And they got to sit in the hideaway part of IX Park to rest and rehydrate!

Next, Adam had to stop by a rehearsal dinner at Pippin Hill, so Colton and Camille got to hang out by their chickens and eat strawberries while he was busy for a few minutes (they also had an iPad, just in case they got bored).

Pippin Hill is so pretty

And then he took them kayaking!

And they had a picnic out on the water

Colton grabs a nap

And then they stopped by the downtown mall

And then their final stop was the Holbein's, where they got to play with Carter, Emma, and Hazel, and celebrate Hazel's second birthday!  (And isn't Hazel the absolute cutest in her bright yellow boots???)

So, yeah, they had a FABULOUS day with Adam!  I wish I could be that fun on any given Saturday!

Meanwhile, we had a lovely time at the temple (in spite of my recommend being expired!!!  Fortunately the bishop was willing to vouch for me, and I was able to get ahold of our stake president pretty quickly, so I was only delayed by about ten minutes!).

Almost the entire gang (minus one mom who didn't want to be pictured and slipped away!)

The youth were desperate to give each other bunny ears, so...

Just the Young Women

Half the group went to Cafe Rio after that, and I would have loved to go, too, but we had work to do back in Charlottesville, so we headed straight home.  And from the church, once everyone had been picked up, Craig went to Lowe's and I returned home.  I threw some frozen pizzas in the oven for everyone, did laundry and dishes, and started cooking up a storm: peanut butter brownies and spinach artichoke dip!  Craig, as soon as he was home, got back to work on that bathroom sink.  He got the entire bathroom put back together and declared "finished" at 11pm!  😅

Here's the bathroom now:

He didn't just paint it green-- he added this towel rod

and swapped out the faucet so it matches the lighting

Along with this towel rod and the toilet paper holders, and he added crown moulding and we changed the artwork around

So the whole thing looks like this now!

And it's so restful and lovely!  And the sink isn't stupid and splattery any more (I always hated that faucet).  It's just so much better.

And it was all done in time for our open house the next evening.  Phew!!!

The open house was a graduation party for the three seniors in our ward-- Aaron, Jesse, and Bentley.  All of them got accepted to BYU, but Aaron and Jesse are planning on going on their missions first, while I encouraged Bentley to get a year of college under his belt before he leaves on his mission.  We spent the afternoon cleaning the house and making another batch of brownies (this time Nutella brownies!), and then the other parents brought sliders and fruit trays and more desserts, and a lot of other people brought food to share, too, so we ended up with way more than enough to eat.  I think I counted over 50 people in our house, so it was pretty wild.  Craig had made a slideshow of Bentley growing up and we got the other parents to contribute slides of their boys, too, and once Craig added sappy music it was all I could do to not cry my eyes out.

But it was a very fun party, which we took absolutely no pictures of.  But I was glad we did it.  These boys deserve a little celebrating!  I do have this great picture from before the party:

Bentley is clearly just as keyed up about this party as I am!

The next day was Craig's school's field day, and for that he got to do their version of the dunk tank (in reality, they were just dumping a bucket of water on his head, but it's the same basic principle).  Looks like they got him good!

Here it comes...

Money shot!

He's a good sport!

I'm sad I couldn't be there to see it!

The next day, Tuesday, was Bentley's big day...!