The Other Cross Family

For Memorial Day we got to visit Mike's older brother Tim and his family in Iowa. Eliza was graduating from high school and we wanted to be there to support her. Plus, they have lived there for like 10 yrs and we have never gone to visit. It was about time! So we all piled into the car and drove forever. That is another blog post in itself! Here, we will just talk about the time we spent there.
Eliza was very busy doing high school senior stuff, so we didn't see her too much except for the important stuff which was what mattered. We did get to spend some time with Amanda. Her room was a fun place for Becca to hide from the dog and for Lenna to book shop. Andrew was impressed with her drumming in the high school band- they talked about their drum sets and how he hopes to play drums in the band as well. Lenna enjoyed tagging along on a shopping trip to the mall with Amanda, Aunt Tammy, and Heather. She found out she can shop in the juniors dept (so much cooler than little girls!) and even talked Aunt Tammy into buying everyone a book to read on the ride home. Andrew really loved playing with their dog and spent a lot of time throwing a ball for her to fetch, over and over and over again! Rebecca is still scared of dogs and the poor girl spent the summer sitting with her feet up on her chair. It seems everyone we visited this summer had a dog or two for her to run from.
The kids especially enjoyed going to the graduation. We didn't get to go to Zan's last year because you had to have a ticket, so this was their first time. It was such a fun ceremony! There are definite advantages to having less than 20 people in your graduating class! They were talked about by name in speeches from teachers and each other, the passing out of diplomas took about 15 minutes, and then they had time and resources leftover to do a fun slide show of pictures of the kids from K to 12th grade and all the things they did together!
At least, I think that is what they did. Elizabeth started crying and flopping and trying to run around just after they walked in (past her bed time, darn time zones) so I spent the entire time walking the empty halls and listening through open doors. But the kids thought is was awesome and have high hopes for their own graduation ceremonies in a few years. Hopefully GA will deliver, although with a class size of 500 or more, I am not too sure it will be quite so personal!
Lenna also started planning her own graduation party as soon as she saw what a wonderful job Aunt Steph did for Eliza. A slide show, tables of photos and awards and school memories, lots of yummy food, and fun decorations and a dance floor. I think their favorite part was the brownie ice cream sundae bar!
It was great to be able to see our family members that we don't cross paths with very often (living on opposite sides of the country makes it hard) and are excited to see them at the upcoming family reunion.