Sarah's Graduation ~ And Three Sisters

On the weekend of May 18 and 19 Rich and I traveled down to Peoria, Illinois to join my sister's family in celebrating the graduation from high school of their youngest daughter, Sarah.

Such a lovely young lady!  She has really good taste in dresses, in my humble opinion.  It seems like not that long ago I was visiting them when she was born.  I know this sense of time passing all too quickly must be felt very acutely for those who have children.

Here she is being a typical teenager . . . cell phone in one hand, networking with her friends . . . soda in the other.

Her classmate and boyfriend Chris was over at the house quite a bit.  They both plan to go on from here to college, but at different locations.

The weekend was a good opportunity to meet up with all of my sister Jennefer's family.  Erica, the first daughter, graduated from college some time ago, and got married in 2010.  She and her husband Sean live in Bloomington, so it is not a long journey for them to come visit when everyone is in town.  It was a warm day, but fortunately there was a breeze to keep it cool, although the breeze was at times swift, so many graduation caps went flying.  We arrived early and staked out a spot in the stands where there was shade.

Erica and Sean

The graduation was held outside in the Dunlap High School football field.  Erica processes in with several classmates.

Here she is leaving her row to go onstage and receive her diploma.

 We were not at the best angle to actually see her receive her diploma.

 The happy graduate!

Jim and Jennefer, the proud parents with their daughter.

At this time Sarah is just unsure what she wants to become when she grows up.  She has become rather fond of and talented with fashion, hair styling and makeup.  She was very encouraging to take advantage of my mop of hair, as well as to use her rather extensive makeup collection on both my face, and her Aunt Janet, who also was able to come for the graduation.

I don't normally wear makeup, except for very special occasions.  I think she did a rather excellent job with the canvas that I was able to offer her.  I teased Rich about hanging out with some strange woman, 'cuz it doesn't look like me!

There was a lot of picture taking over the weekend, as all of the Standlee girls were together, and for a happy event.

You can tell we are related!

It was really nice to see my sisters!

Three Hot Senioritas!  Ok . . . Senoras!

Three Gals from Texas!

On Monday morning, we had a Sister Day, and went out for a pedicure, lunch, and then wrapped it up with ice cream.  OK . . . whose foot is whose?

While we girls were bonding, Rich and Jim went to the Caterpillar Visitor's Center for a guy-appropriate day.  They had fun with that . . . but no ice cream!

It was a really fun weekend to visit with my family, and to celebrate happy times! 

Oh . . . and I had a birthday too!  Yippeeee!