GRADUATION!

It was graduation day for Nate, our youngest, last Saturday. It was a beautifully sunny day, though a tad windy!

We left home for our 2 hour drive northwest to Frostburg, home of Frostburg State University and Nate's home for the last 5 years. This is what greeted us when we arrived! Okay so it was still two and a half hours till graduation.

We relaxed a bit and then headed out to lunch at one of his favorite restaurants. El Canelo, it serves good Mexican food at prices that can not be beat! My chicken quesadilla served with Spanish rice and refried beans was $5. You don't find that in the Washington DC area. Then it was time to head back to his house grab his cap and gown and head to graduation.

There are no pictures in cap the wind took those mortar boards and they became kites without strings. BUT here is how he looked cleaned up and in his gown. Not bad huh?
HE was my man in black!

The graduation ceremony was appropriately solemn with cheers and laughter thrown in just to show how proud friends and family were of this group of grads.

After graduation it was a totally different matter. This was when it became apparent that though Nate graduated with a degree in Physics, his heart was with his roommate and friends who were theater majors! Yes this is a whole new use of diplomas and academic cords.

It was a great day and we ended it with dinner at the restaurant were it all began with a family dinner early in his freshman year; The Acropolis. A world tour of food through the high in the mountains of western Maryland. Mexican for lunch and Greek for dinner.

As I said at the beginning it was a beautifully sunny though windy day. A special treat since it had been raining all week. As we left for home the rain once again moved in and we drove through it the entire 2 hour drive back to Germantown.

MORE PINK!

The cherry blossoms are long gone, but we have more pink in our yard. The recent rain intermixed with moments of sun have brought our rhododendron bush into bloom. We forgot to prune it last summer so it is very big this year and full of beautiful blooms.

This bush is right outside our front door. The blooms are actually a cluster of many smaller flowers and each bloom measures about 6 to 8 inches across. This is what one looks like close up. Fortunately for allergy sufferers there is no scent at all with these flowers. I'm sure my husband appreciates that.

I also took a picture of the whole bush so it could be seen in all it's beauty. It's relly quite large and this summer we will need to be sure and prune it back or it will take over the whole front of our house.

I think I mentioned in one of my posts about the cherry blossoms that though they are pretty when they are fresh they get really nasty when they are old. If you look carefully at the lower left of the picture of the rhododendron bush you will see what looks like brown dirt on the side walk.....That is what is left of the cherry blossoms that didn't get swept up before the rain came. They are a pile of brown mush now......YUKKY!

Also though the rhododendron doesn't have any scent at the lower right you can see my lavender bush that also is overtaking the garden bed and when it looms it has a lovely scent.

QUOTE FOR TODAY!

"What you need to know about the past it is that no matter what has happened, it has all worked together to bring you to this very moment. And this is the moment you can choose to make everything new. Right now."
- Author Unknown

I have to give credit to Stampin' Mama (Erica) for this wonderful quote. She shared it on a very personal scrapbook layout on her BLOG and it spoke to me in a big way. The past is something I have been struggling with for some time now and I need to be free of it. I think this is true for many of us. We are so tied up in past mistakes or past pains that we are not free to live our present life as God means it to be lived. Rather than seeing the past as what has brought up to this very moment it becomes what is keeping us from this very moment.

I know that there are not many visitors to this BLOG and that is okay. But if you do visit here and read this and like me are struggling to be free of the past to live in the present my prayer for you is that God will help you make this happen. Also if you stop by here and have not ever visited Erica I encourage you to do so. You can just click here. She is one talented and amazing woman!

A BIT OF A RANT!

This is not a pretty picture post or even a wonderful quote. It is more of a registering of a trend that I find very disturbing. Call me old, call me old fashioned, call me out of touch with the culture today.....I don't care what you might call me, but this article in the Washington Post yesterday really bothers me in a BIG way. What are we teaching our children? What have we taught the young parents of today about the meaning of being parents themselves. From this article it would seem not much good.

The article appeared on the front page of the B section of the Monday, May5, edition of the Washington Post and it is about nightclubs that open their doors to parents and their children 7 years old and under for a time of "clubbing" together. It's called Baby Loves Disco. Now I don't have any problem with little kids dancing and having fun with there parents, but this seems mainly to be a program to allow parents a day or night out drinking and dancing in a nightclub atmosphere with their kids. This is how the article described it...."it was a 300-person play date that mixed Bud Light and ba-bas, sequined halter tops and Huggies. Once a month, the latest in I-don't-wanna-grow-up parenting hits the District at the edgy nightclub of the moment,"

It was some of the quotes from these parents that really set me off.

"..... took a long pull on his rum and Coke. He was glad that he could buy a drink. He was, after all, huffing on the dance floor, his 11-day-old son, Henry, strapped to his chest in a Baby Bjorn and his wild 2-year-old, A.J., wiggling across the room.

His wife, ....., was delighted to get back into a nightclub so soon after childbirth.

"When you become a parent, you suddenly stop being this person you've been all these years, and that part is hard," she said."

Well, yeah, when you choose to have children you do become a parent!!! I don't think you stop being who you are you become a different facet of who you are. You now have a new role. In my old fashioned opinion if you don't want to be a parent that DON'T BECOME ONE! And yes it is hard! But it is so rewarding as well. As a parent you have a responsibility to your children and I personally don't think that includes taking them clubbing at 11 days old!

If you would like to read this whole article you can see it here. It is not just a DC phenomenon. It is all around the country. I would be interested in knowing what you think. Am I the only old fashioned thinker that worries about what we are teaching our young ones about life and how is should be lived????? Just curious. If I am I will go find a rock and crawl under it.

PINK PETALS

A while back I posted pictures of our beautiful ornamental cherry tree and mentioned that when the blossoms came down they would need to be shoveled up! Well that is where we are now. here are a few photos from our front yard now that the blossoms are falling off the tree and there are many more to come down.

When the wind blows and they fall it really is as if there is a pink snow fall. BUT after they a have been on the ground for a while they begin to turn brown and that is not so pretty. What we need now is a really strong rain fall to wash them all away! Once they are all gone we know that is is now summer in Maryland!