Senior Cotillion

This end of the year dance is solely for seniors. No dates...just everyone showing up to celebrate making it through three years of high school and upcoming graduation. The dress is semi-formal so they get to dress up a bit and dance it out one last time. Julianne came home with a banged up knee and a fat lip, due to some hard core dancing mishaps...but with a huge smile on her face. She'd had a great time flitting from group to group, dancing with all her various friends she's made over the years. What a fun tradition.

Julianne and Elle decided to take some pictures together before leaving for the dance. These two will be rooming together at Utah Valley University so it was fun to get some shots of the two of them together as they finish up their years in high school and look forward with excited anticipation to the adventures to come.

Tulip Festival

I love flowers. One of my favorite things is to have a vase full of some sort of bouquet on my bed side table so I can see and smell them as I go to sleep and then wake up to again in the morning. Poor Bryan, I make it so difficult for him to ever surprise me on Valentines Day or our anniversary with fresh flowers...I'm all too frequently buying them for myself. At this point he's more or less given up. As far as variety goes, I'm not picky...I'm happy with daisies, carnations, lilies, daffodils, roses, what have you. But if I had to pick a favorite, I think it would be tulips. They are in season for much too short of a time, in my opinion. So during the spring, those are most often what I choose to fill my vases when I am in the mood for some colorful, fresh flowers.

I'd heard of the tulip festival at Thanksgiving Point. I'd always wanted to go. But it's a long drive from my house and for one reason or another, I'd never made it down there during the allotted time that the tulips were in bloom. This year I was determined to go. And though I was happy to wander the gardens on my own, I called my mom and asked if she wanted to join me. When Katie heard we were considering a date to go, she said she had a season pass to Thanksgiving Point and though she had just been there a few days earlier with her children, she offered to come along again and get us in for half price. Sweet! Especially considering the entrance price was more steep than I had expected!

So the three of us wandered those beautiful tulip gardens for hours. I was amazed at how many different varieties of tulips they are...and the individual and delicate details of each. Just so stunningly beautiful. We had such a great girls afternoon! We're thinking maybe we'll go back in a few months to see what the gardens look like with their traditional summer flowers.

Lantern Fest

Call me Rapunzel but I've always really wanted to be a part of a lantern festival. I've considered one in the past that takes place just outside of Las Vegas...but that meant getting to Vegas, and paying a nice chunk of change to attend.

So when I saw advertisements for the Lantern Fest that was out near Tooele and a whole lot less bucks to boot, I jumped on it. I decided to not even ask the kids if they wanted to go or not and made an executive decision that this was to be a family adventure.

I happily counted down the days and when we got within the week, started keeping my eyes on the weather. And then got a little nervous. Because it was supposed to be really windy. As everyone knows, wind and lanterns don't really go together. The organizers promised to make the final call within a few hours of the launch as to whether or not the event would cancel or proceed as planned. They decided to chance it, and so we all piled in the car, with a picnic dinner and lots of blankets in tow, and made the drive. It was still windy. Windy enough that I was concerned that the drive would be for naught and they'd still end up canceling. Plus, oh my was that wind freezing cold!

But we settled in around one of the many bonfires to wait for dark, listen to the music, eat our dinner, and try really hard to stay warm. We made s'mores and wrote on our lanterns with the markers they had provided. And listened intently to the weather updates that were interspersed amongst the music throughout the evening. There was still a lot of uncertainty as to whether or not we'd actually be able to launch our lanterns.

The launch was delayed...but it happened! There was a slight break in the wind that the organizers quickly took advantage of. After some instruction to do with how and when to get those lanterns lit and floating, they started playing "I See the Light" from Tangled and then moved to "To Where You Are" by Josh Groban. Julianne was rather delighted with their perfect "rising music."

It was slightly more difficult than expected getting our lanterns to float, but float they eventually did and, just wow. Who could've guessed the overwhelming feeling in your chest watching those lights float up and around in the sky above your head? It was nothing short of incredible.

The drive home was horrific...such amazing amounts of traffic trying to get out of that small area. And the wind picked back up bringing in one of those famous Davis County wind storms that knock over fences and trees, power and semis, as well as rip siding and shingles from houses.
Our lantern launch was in the small little calm before the storm. We lucked out that we were able to take part in "the most beautifulest thing I've ever seen"...according to Lilian.