In Honor of Part V...THE GRADUATE

Today was Kyle's convocation--He has officially graduated.

As the last "In Honor of" post, I wanted to post some pictures of him with some of his family. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of him with EVERYONE.





Note to self: I need to get some pictures of Kyle with some of his other brothers and sisters. I do need to say that Kyle ABSOLUTELY LOVES his brothers Neal and Stephen. He his planning a trip to a concert in Chicago this summer and was saying he would LOVE it if Neal and Stephen could go. He has said when he grows up he wants to be a dad like both of them--in Kyle's mind, both of them are SO COOL.
I will have to post this picture of the kids with their dad at his 60th birthday in 2003.













One of my favorites of Kyle with his "Tank". This was taken at a Music for Young Children Performance in 1998.




















Kyle and his "little" nephew, Chris, are good buddies. (I think this picture was taken after some kind of a bet on a ping pong game--there have been consequences for the loser that have involved going out barefoot in the snow--kissing the other one's feet, etc.) Kyle was sad he couldn't be there last month when Chris and Heather were married. He is looking forward to seeing Chris in a few weeks when Amanda gets married.




One of my favorite pictures of Kyle and his brother and nephews.














Heidi and Kyle have spent many hours on the basketball court together.















Kyle and his nephew, Drew, back in 2005.






















This was taken the day Brent left to go to the MTC--Kyle grew quite a bit while Brent was gone. It will be so fun to have them both together at BYU.


















Either he's teaching Garrett, or Garrett is teaching him, how to give one another a high-five.














This is one of my favorites of Kyle and Kiah--they are only 6 months apart in age. She is a real beauty and all of Kyle's friends wish she lived closer ; )

















Kyle and his niece Hannah at Neal and Macy's wedding in 2005. Goodness, they both have grown up a lot since then.

















Wendy is the official hairdresser (and make-up artist) in our family. Here she is doing the make-up for our family production of "The Ultimate Watch" filmed in Park City. (Oh such memories)
















Kyle and Brandon had a great time parasailing in Hawaii--and taking surfing lessons together, too.




















When we were at a family reunion three years ago, Kyle had a ball hanging out with these guys. He came back and talked about how much fun they had--he thinks Daphne (who is taking the picture) is so fun.















A favorite of Kyle and his grandpa. Kyle loves the fact that he knows his Grandpa was in Church the day he was blessed. It has always made him have a special connection with Grandpa R.


















The last picture I have of Kyle with his Grandma--I can't tell you how glad I am that I have this picture.

















AND, BY THE WAY, SINCE KYLE IS MY ONLY CANADIAN CHILD, AND IN HONOR OF HIS GRADUATION, CAN I ADD: HAPPY CANADA DAY--TOMORROW I've decided I'm going to do a "Canadian stuff" giveaway, complete with Clodhoppers, Smarties, Maple Syrup, Ketchup chips, etc. (I even found a Canadian jigsaw puzzle that will help you all learn all those little provinces.) I'm going to post about it in a couple of days--maybe I'll do the post on the 4th of July ; )

Speaking of give-aways, my friend, Magirk, has opened an Etsy shop and is hosting a giveaway, so please go here and look at all the great things she has.

In Honor of Part IV...Sports

I figure I only have a couple of days left before Convocation to do these "In Honor Of" posts. Judging by the number of comments, it doesn't seem like people are enjoying them,, BUT I LOVE THEM. Kyle and most of the family doesn't read my blog, but one day I'll have these all bound in a book and I'm sure Kyle will enjoy looking at them. So, sorry, there will be a couple more.

Being a tomboy growing up has enabled me to ENJOY EACH AND EVERY SPORTING EVENT that my kids have participated in--as well as many games and meets where I've watched my grandchildren.

Kyle has enjoyed a lot of different sports--Here are some fun pictures:

Skiing--When you live in Winnipeg, there are not a lot of places to ski (other than the garbage dump. When Neal, Chris and Amanda came one Christmas, we went to a place out of town for the kids to ski.





















Bowling--When the kids were little and we'd get together we'd go bowling. When we moved here and discovered 5 pin bowling, it was kind of fun.





























Boxing--Well, kind of ; ) I couldn't resist.























Pool--Not sure it's a sport, but Kyle and his dad have played a few times.


















Yes, swimming is a sport and Kyle has been a little fish ever since he was a little guy--well, except for that period of time when he had an incident in the pool and Brent "saved him". When we first moved here to Winnipeg all of the kids really missed the pool--I think they all realized pretty quickly that a pool here wouldn't get used quite as much as the pool in Cali.




















He attended tennis camp at the end of grade 5.































Kyle played soccer for a number of years. I think THE REAL REASON he played was because he WANTED A TROPHY. In fact, as soon as the season was over, he turned to us and asked, "So, where's my trophy???"












Soccer picture 2000



















His soccer career ended here, after a "friendly" game during lunch in Grade 7
























He has a great love for basketball--face it you can't be a member of this family without playing basketball. Very few family gatherings haven't included a visit to the Church for a game or two. He started playing school basketball in 7th Grade, but didn't play the last couple of years of high school. (I REALLY MISSED IT ; (





































Because of his great vertical leap he was encouraged to play volleyball and joined the school team in Grade 10. I loved to watch him play. Here are some favorite shots.






































































He and his dad had a great time when he participated in track and field--indoor and outdoor. Of course the highlight was winning lst this year in the Province in the long jump. This is not his winning jump, but one of them.

































































One of the things Kyle loves to do that I ABSOLUTELY HATE is skateboarding. In fact, when we were in Hawaii last year, he wanted to go skateboarding. We found this place for him to skateboard.






















And, obviously, he loved taking surfing lessons in Hawaii.
















Sidenote #1: The dress for Trek is done (well, other than needing to be hemmed.

Sidenote #2: We're loving the new TV and must say not missing "The Treasure Box".

In Honor Of...Part III Friends

I think living in Winnipeg has really been the only place Kyle probably remembers living--although he has lived in Brampton, Ont., Reno, and Auburn. We moved here in Feb of 1996 when he was 4 1/2. He has always been a very friendly young man. He loves his friends and spends a great deal of time with them. He is not terribly outgoing so the move to BYU in the Fall will be tough, but he's a great young man and I know he'll adjust.

I have always loved that quite often our home is where the kids will hang out. I love having the house filled with kids--which will make September a real test. These neighbor kids moved away many years ago.
















This is a group of guys when he was in Grade 4 or 5. He still hangs out with one of these young men today.
















Last night was Kyle's Graduation dinner and Safe Grad. I went over to the park to take pictures of Kyle and his friends. I got some really great ones. Yes, his friend, GM, is wearing a kilt. He even piped the Safe Grad Committee into the graduation dinner. (When the guys graduated from Grade 6, GM piped them all into the cafeteria for the graduation--I LOVED IT.Many of these boys have been friends for years--and as we parents visited tonight we all commented to one another how grateful we are that all of these boys are such great young men. None of us have to worry about them.












GM picked them up in a 54 Cadi--THEY LOVED IT. No, they didn't have to push it.
















We tried to do a fun pic of the guys in the car--but just couldn't get all of them to lean forward enough to get their faces through the window. This was the best I could do.














Did manage to get a picture of Allan, Kyle and me.

















Here are some of the boys in a pic in 2003--that is R and then C, and Kyle, and M (who Kyle does not hang out with anymore)
and G

Here are these boys some 6 years later:


R who is such a great young man (Kyle has stayed with his family a few times when we've gone away on weekend trips--









Kyle with C--He is a very sweet young man who was one of the first to come and see Kyle when he broke his foot/leg.













And finally here he is with G. I told G I have a pic when these guys were young and G has a beanie baby on his shoulder--I said I should have brought the beanie baby for the picture. G , Kyle, and R have been friends since they all went to the same elementary school and had the same teacher in Grade 2






There was a point when these boys were over just about every Friday and Saturday night--quite often for a sleepover. I believe this was Grade 8













Many hours have been spent on the trampoline.

















Grade 9 graduation dinner.
















About a year and a half ago when they were all hat the house during lunch playing Apples to Apples.













Volleyball game last year, Kyle and G strategize or JUST RELAX.














Safe Grad is actually something I HATE. I think a Junior Prom and Senior Ball is much better. But, I'm not in charge, so instead each graduation we've had to deal with Safe Grad. There was a dinner (the food was good)--they had one dance for the parents with their graduate (to Israel K's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"--who in the heck picked that song???). Then all the parents left and the kids got to Party--and party they did. I don't usually stay up all night--well, I have insomnia quite often, but of course last night, I was dead tired and kept falling asleep while waiting until 2 a.m. to go pick Kyle up. All of the kids have to be picked up by a parent--so I was there like I was supposed to be at 2 a.m. I was glad that Kyle had a great time





This afternoon, some of the boys came over to jump










I have to admit, sometimes I worry when I look out and see THIS



























By the way, we BIT THE BULLET. Kyle and his friends have "LOVINGLY" referred to our TV in the basement as "The Treasure Box"--which looked like this. I told Kyle that perhaps we should have a raffle and the prize could be The Treasure Box.













It has now been replaced by this: I NEVER thought I would be able to tell the difference between regular TV and HDTV. Ha--there is such a difference.
















Sidenote: Happy 21st birthday to my grandson, Jason. Here he is with his favorite grandma ; ) I can say that because his other grandma doesn't read my blog.