A Weekend With Family

This weekend we celebrated my nephew Joe's graduation from high school with a graduation open house party at his family's home. I'd like to share a few pictures with you from that event and the time leading up to it.

On Friday night, I picked up Emily (Joe's sister) and she spent the night at our house. I had volunteered to make some desserts and a salad for the open house, and Emily came over to help.

She decided she would like to make them all by herself (a decision I think she later regretted, as I suspected she would, but it was a great opportunity to teach the concept of starting a task and completing it).

Emily made three kinds of dessert bars, and she did it all by herself. Occasionally she would say, "This is a tricky part. I need someone to supervisor me." And I would step in with the appropriate instruction. Here she is with her ingredients at the beginning of her venture (she insisted on wearing the shower cap/hair net, rubber gloves, and apron for the best sanitary conditions).

After Emily made the desserts, she made a flower arrangement (she had purchased some flowers for her grandma's birthday present and wanted to learn how to arrange them--I love arranging flowers, so we had a little tutorial time around that).

Here I am with the graduate. Congratulations Joe! I love you!

Here I am with my brothers, Rob and John. A serious picture was tough to get amongst this crowd.

This is my Mom, my Dad-Larry, my brother John and his girlfriend, Jessica, and great-niece-in-law, Mia, smack dab in the middle.

My Dad made a trip in from Texas. He was here for the day while on his way to a job in North Dakota. It was good to see him.

Grandpa Kidd with two of the granddaughters, Emily and Kylie.

This is my brother Rob and my Dad-Larry (stepdad) working the huge grill. There was no absence of grilled meat at this party, and it was quite delicious!

The preceding pictures were literally the calm before the storm. The evening ended with a tornado that came through (causing some damage to the horse barn, garden, and a few very large trees), but God spared our lives and kept us free from injury for which I am very grateful!

When you see God's power and handiwork displayed in such powerful storms as tornadoes it is a reminder that God is truly in control of all things and we are fooling ourselves to think otherwise.

For this day, from the beginning to the end, I stand with the psalmist and say:

Praise the LORD!
Praise O servants of the LORD, Praise the name of the LORD!
Blessed be the name of the LORD from this time forth and forevermore!
From the rising of the sun to its going down the LORD’s name is to be praised.
Psalm 113: 1-3