Tom's 24th Birthday

Tom turned 24 last week.  Maddy took him to Peg Leg Pete's for lobster.  Tom loves lobster and you can see the joy on his face picking one out and playing with it when it arrives.

Happy 4th

We had a nice 4th of July.  Christopher spent the whole day at Fort Vancouver with his church family and had a great time.  Bill and I went to the Fort for a few hours to watch the Sing 4th competition and enjoy some time at the Grant House.  The Sing 4th competition is for high school students.  There is a competition just to get into the top 10 to sing for the 4th of July so the talent is exceptional .  They all did a great job and a couple of my favorites won the top two prizes.

Afterward, Bill and I took Beverly to Cindy and Jim's house for a BBQ.  It was a great time.  Especially hearing Cindy tell about drunk religious parrots in Honduras and other great stories. 

After we got home, I braved the war zone streets of our neighborhood to enjoy some of the fireworks and was able to get a couple good pictures.

Happy Birthday USA!

Graduation

Christopher completed his graduation requirements for Clark College a couple of weeks ago.  He was very close as of the end of spring quarter--had only 4 credits left to graduate.  So that made the China trip possible for him since it happened in the middle of the quarter.  He took a five credit online class and finished with a 4.0 GPA.  Unfortunately for mom--he decided not to "walk" at the graduation ceremony.  Some good reasons at the time that he needed to make the decision.  Probably wishes he had now since the biggest reason ended up not being a factor.  But it really doesn't signify being done with his education anyway so I have been rationalizing it that way.  Clark has been a stepping stone--a means of figuring out what direction he wanted to take his life and a less expensive alternative to getting general education credits.  And he managed to really blossom there and we're hoping that success will continue when he goes to Western Washington University.

We had a small celebration with some friends and celebrated with Thai and Chinese food at Chris' request.  And of course cake for the photo opportunity since there definitely wasn't going to be any cap and gown pictures.

Not resting on his laurels, Chris has decided to take a summer class at Clark to help him occupy his time.  And the course is right up his alley--History of American Diplomacy.  So I am sure he will enjoy it very much.