Yippee Yahoo!

Picked our first tomato of the season yesterday! Now we wait for the seemingly infinite number of green balls to follow suit. I feel like I'm in one of those old Mervyn's commercials with people standing outside the store chanting Open, Open, Open...only I'm chanting Red, Red, Red. I want salsa NOW!

ps. it is a Brandywine and fairly small but hey,

it beat out the Early Girl!

Procrastination...

....or How We Spent Father's Day!

We are finally pouring more cement on a project that was started 2 years ago.

We tend to like to start projects, finishing...not so much.

Broken concrete and cement....Dad is a genius!

Now we find ourselves constantly going out back and just staring at the finished walkway.

It's just so nice to have it DONE.

And everyone contributed....

....oldest son Bradley...

....Private First Class Sam....

....future Oregon dweller Wilson...

.... beach lover Annie...

...Monarch baseball coach Steve....

....and gardener Mom.

The Family Walkway :)

Beans, Beans....

...and more Beans!

Freezer is pretty much full (not sure why and not looking forward to finding out) so I decided to can the 7lbs. of green beans

I picked last night.

Added a bit of onion to some of the jars and ended up with 6 quarts of 'summer in winter' produce.....yea!

Wilson's Graduation

Our third son graduated Friday night from Exeter Union High School....Yippee Yahoo!

Some of Wilson's favorite teachers.

Our Valedictorian.

With 'big brother' Bradley :)

Annie and her best friend Kayla.

Best Buddies.

Congratulations Wils!!!

The Prom

Our children.....all dressed up and all grown up....sigh. This last weekend our son Wilson and daughter Annie attended the High School Prom. They both had a great time and looked marvelous .....

....most of time :)

Annie didn't get quite the press coverage that her brother did....just one of the perks of being a senior....but she has 2 more years to be the center of attention.

Redo...

...on Wilson's senior pic. Rushed out today and took a few quick shots because I hated the other ones. This is final....seriously...I'm not doing this again....ever.....until Annie is a senior :)

Fresno State Grad

Brad is officially a college graduate.....Yippee Yahoo!

We attended his graduation ceremony Saturday at the SaveMart Center in Fresno.

More than 2 thousand young people filled the stadium floor and we spent most of the 2-hour ceremony trying to find Brad in a sea of black (which proved fruitless despite the texting between Brad and girlfriend). We were sitting about 12 rows down from the ceiling and tho we were some distance from the stage, we liked our seats.

I did find Brad later in the random photos I was taking of the graduates as they were getting seated.

And apparently we weren't the only ones trying to locate our children:)

Lots of speeches, awards and honorary doctorates (one given to Exeter High grad Kenny Guinn - former governor of Nevada) before the bestowing of the degrees on the graduates. It truly was an impressive ceremony. And on a surprise note(to us anyway:) Brad graduated Cum laude 'with praise', awarded to undergraduate students with grade point averages of 3.5 to 3.69.

Following the main graduating ceremony, there was a reception for the Kinesiology graduates

where the actual diplomas were awarded.

As we were leaving campus, we had to deal with the obligatory car problem....taken care of with a little brute strength and ignorance.

Afterwards we headed to Brad's favorite dining establishment, Brewbakers (hey, it's not just about the beer :) and then walked down the street to take in a movie (How to Train Your Dragon - Brad's choice) before heading home to open a good bottle of Pina and toast our oldest son's accomplishment.

Congratulations Brad!