Kaylie's a Grad!

Well, she survived the day: Kaylie is officially a graduate!

It was a dark and stormy night...

Well, it wasn't dark...just overcast. But we did get rained on and hailed on a couple of times. Still, the ceremony was nice—not too long—and we heard Kaylie's name read out, and she got her diploma. Yay!

Bruce's camera found her just in the nick of time—
we can see that she's shaking someone's hand, but none of us
knows whose hand. Maybe that will show up in the
film pictures that Jason took of her.

headed back to her seat, diploma in hand,
and a mighty happy look on her face

the first official photo with her diploma
(sort of...really it's just the diploma folder)

OK. This is actually the first official picture with her diploma.
It's hard to see, but there is a rainbow behind her.
It showed up just as the ceremony ended. Does this mean the heavens smile on this graduation? Or does it mean there won't be rain and hail for any more Uintah High graduation ceremonies?

Kaylie is wearing an honor medal for her outstanding GPA (3.98). (She earned one of these medals each of the four years she attended Uintah, but chose only to wear this year's.)  She is also wearing a medal for participating in the choir program for four years, a dog-tag for participating in SoVoce (an extra jazz-choir group that rehearsed during lunch and after school—she did this for two years), and a cord for taking extra classes in the summer. She is awesome!

the requisite graduation photo in front of the U

There wasn't as much wind as there was for Brandon's
and Ryan's graduations, but she still did get
a little bit of tassel blown in the face.

Congratulations, Kaylie!

Senior Pictures!

This cute little girl

has turned into this lovely, young lady:

And she is graduating from high school TODAY!

So it's probably about time for me to post her senior pics (which, admittedly, we only took last Tuesday evening).

Bruce and I took Kaylie to Remember the Maine Park (which is a favorite of all my kids), and we hiked around and took photos for about two hours. 494 photos, and three videos, to be exact.

Here's a couple of outtakes:

All right. Here she is just laughing and looking darn cute. It's hard to get a bad/silly picture of Kaylie (unless she is talking and in-between facial expressions).

And here's the good stuff:

next to the deep, flowing water
(I have to tell you this, because you can't really see the water.)

And here's what goes on behind the scenes...
You might notice that Bruce's camera is not pointed at Kaylie.

Um, yeah. Here is what he was taking a picture of: me at my best—in Bruce's T-shirt (which is too big), and Kaylie's jacket (which is too small), and a camera in front of my face.)

This is the "I'm so cute" face and pose that the choir and theater kids do.

 photo-bomb!

We searched for a nice tree for Kaylie to lean up against, and instead she climbed up into this tree. And we got a nice picture of her.

We did get a really nice picture of her in the tree.

And then we had an adventure. Kaylie was able to get into the tree, but she couldn't get back down again. After a few attempts, she had to get turned around so Bruce could get close enough for her to climb onto his shoulders (which high, wobbly place she did not like much). Bruce stepped away from the tree, but was unable to squat down for her to climb off his shoulders. In the end, he went back to the tree, she scooted her bottom onto an almost horizontal limb, and then he lifted her down to the ground.

And here's a good tree to lean on:

We had a fun evening photo-shoot, and got some pretty good pics. 

And now, we wait for the actual graduation ceremonies—tonight! 

Yay for Kaylie!