Natali's Graduation

While we were on our way to Utah for Natali's graduation Thursday after school (on Emmy's birthday), Natali and Miguel were hitting up dozens of groceries stores so Natali could have Mexican corn at her party after the graduation.  Eventually they succeeded and we all enjoyed the corn that night.

But Friday morning we woke up and readied for the day and met up with Grandma, Grandpa, Andrew and Natali and Miguel at Slackwater Pizza where we all tried some very creative and delicious pizzas.

They had this display up at the outdoor mall where the restaurant was so we took advantage of the photo op.

Natali went off to get ready and the rest of us went to Andrew's dorm to get him moved out.  He hadn't started packing but we all jumped in and his stuff was loaded in the back of Grandpa's truck in no time.  A bit longer and his place was cleaned and he was checked out of Helaman Halls - Freshman year done.

We did find his Cannon center cafeteria uniform from when he was working before he hurt his knee.  We made Lily try it on before he returned it.

Parking at Andrews place left us a very short walk up to the Marriott Center where we met up with Natali for some pictures before the big event.

Since Natalli's high school graduation was during covid this was her first real graduation- getting her Bachelors and Masters Degrees of Information Systems Management at the same time.  Five years at BYU and she is finally done.  She starts working for Sunrise Technologies in June.

Grandma Nani made it just in time for the graduation and we got a picture afterwards before we headed to the church for Natali's party.

Her sister-in-law, Karly, took these pictures in March.  They turned out so well.

Miguel's family, Regan and cousin Claire, joined us as we all enjoyed chatting, eating chick-fil-a nuggets, yummy corn, lemonies and double chocolate Levain cookies I had made and brought from home.  Miguel put together a cute game about Natali that Lily crushed everyone else because of her mad fast answering skills.  It was a lot of fun.

The next morning Natali took Emmy to get her second piercing for her birthday, something Emily had tried multiple times to accomplish but was always thwarted.  She got it done with a hollow needle - it was cool to watch.  

Then we saw Natali's new place and got the girls their birthday Sephora gifts before we said goodbye to Natali and met up with Kate, Greg and Andrew at Violet's rugby game.  We got to watch the last few minutes and cheer them on to victory with some of the aunts and cousins.  From there we said bye to Greg (he was headed to the airport) and hit the road to get us home late Saturday night.  It was a fun weekend, special to see Natali graduate; all of her hard work has paid off.

Early Birthday for Emmy

We celebrated Emily's bday early, on Sunday, since she we would be headed to Utah on her birthday.

She got clothes, a lego, body stuff, and a tracking collar for a kitty.  She also got ticket to go to Les Miserables.

Emily worked all morning on her cake.  It was an Oreo cake and that Oreo frosting was divine.  We were all eating spoonfuls of it while she decorated.

Sweet 16 Emmy!  We love your fire, energy, spunk, opinions, singing, game playing, cat obsession, animal knowledge and geography genius.

Whale Shark Piñata

For Emily's Spanish class she had to make a piñata, last year she made a little hungry caterpillar about two feet long.  This year she and Raney were brainstorming and started talking about making a huge whale shark.  Their teacher doubted they could complete such an endeavor- that sealed the deal and they started creating the largest piñata I've ever seen 5 feet 4 inches long.

It came to our home where Lily and I joined the fun of gluing thousands of little squares of tissue paper onto the cardboard shaped like a sea creature.  We watched a few Marvel movies (Lily just started her Marvel journey) and had a lot of chit chat while gluing.

Hours later it was completed and even included a little fishy to swim with.  Sadly, the shear size wasn't enough for them to win first place, but second place isn't bad especially when first place included led lights.

Fishy friend. 

Spring Time

Easter Sunday happened to be conference Sunday so we enjoyed a lazy morning...I forgot to do the Jesus scavenger hunt and Greg had to quickly throw it together while I made all the dishes I volunteered to take over to Val's for Easter dinner.

Emily made some cute Easter pancakes.

We enjoyed conference and petting kitties.

The girls dyed eggs and we did our usual candy eggs hidden outside, and I don't even think we lost one.

Lily got her braces off!!!

In her science class they had an assignment to take a picture of a tree and they entered into a contest and her photo got honorable mention...this is the famous picture.

Rusty or should I say Marsh

Right before Spring Break we realized that no one had seen Mama Shai for a few days.  We began texting neighbors, posting online, calling shelters, and looking all over but after several days and then weeks we still no sign of her.  These are some of the very last photos taken of her.  She was such a great kitty.

Emily was taking her loss really hard and was still spending time looking outside when she could.  One Saturday evening after finishing baby sitting she called me to say she had found a stray cat and she wanted to bring it home to get it fed and cleaned up.  She promised she would take it to the Castilles shelter on Monday.  I asked if she was sure it wasn't someone's cat - no collar, absolutely filthy, matted, and very skinny - she was sure.  So I let her bring him home on the condition he stay in the garage.  

The little guy, soon dubbed Rusty, was such a lovie thing, but about as dirty of a a cat as I had ever seen.  Emmy didn't wan't to leave it alone so she set up a mat and slept in the garage; Rusty slept on her face, and apparently smelled like barf - that is love.

After church Emily gave him a bath.  I kid not, a bath, and the kitty let her.  

Brushed and blow dried he smelled a bit better but  still had a ways to go before clean would be a descriptor.

She wanted to let him wander but was afraid to let him out so she walked him on a leash.  Seriously, this was the calmest cat ever.  Emily didn't complain when the Castilles didn't respond to her texts and a day or two turned into several.  She got him to another level of clean in the shower and took him on more walks. Soon there was talk about how to keep him, I shut that down, but she was still dreaming when Thursday dad sent a picture of a local email about a missing cat. A family was missing a very old cat, one that looks like a stray because it is so old it doesn't groom itself anymore, a cat thats home was on the very street where Emily found Rusty.  The picture was identical to Rusty.

Emily took him home as soon as she got back from school.  The family was relieved to be reunited to "Marsh".  Emily felt so bad, but I figured that cat looked better than it had in ages so she'd done them a favor, but she understood how they must have worried and she felt so bad that she had created the situation, but he did look like a stray.  She has such a big heart for kitties.