Starring KYLE!

Isn’t that one handsome guy? My brother Kyle ROCKS!!! For the second weekend in a row, we drove to the Seattle area and stayed with my family. Kyle was the star of the show: on Sunday he was ordained an elder in the Melchizadek Priesthood, and on Monday he graduated from Newport High School. Talk about big life-changing events! It was so wonderful to be there and support him.

Of course we took all the traditional pictures…

Father and son

With the parentals…

…and the grand-parentals…

Los hombres

Now, on to the Graduation pictures…we may or may not have done them the day before the actual graduation, right after all the other pictures you just saw. We didn’t even bring a camera (aside from Dad’s video camera) to graduation because it was too crazy to get pictures there. The graduation was at the University of Washington basketball arena. Jeff stayed home with Jay, while Rose and I braved the crowds with the rest of la familia. Rose was an angelbaby, as usual, and I only had to take her out once!

As the senior class vice president, Kyle was one of the two MCs for the graduation. He was Mr. Confidence up there, introducing speakers and reading off his classmates’ names like there weren’t thousands of people watching him. (Are we really related?) He wore the gold AP honors cape because he passed whole heap of AP tests, and the honors cord because he is supersmart and has really good grades. Yes I am a proud older sister.

Oh yeah, you’re probably wondering what the graduate’s plans for the future are. Kyle turns 19 in November, so he plans to go on a mission A.S.A.P. and when he gets back, Cornell University has claimed him for basketball and schooling.

Gazing thoughtfully into the middle distance. A word about the AP honor student gold “cape” thingy—we couldn’t figure out if it was supposed to go on with the V in the front or in the back, and we got it WRONG in all these pictures. oops. It still looks ok to me!

Remembering the good ole days wistfully

My Grama and Grampa Gwynn (mom’s parents) came from California for the big day! Before this weekend, I hadn’t seen them for 3 years, so it was fun to spend time together. I like them a lot.

Enough with the serious pictures, time for a tassel war! I gave him a tassel willy, and he gave me a few tassel-whips.

Ok, if we must. I love my brother! It is so strange to think that he’s now “all grown up” because in my mind, he’s still kind of frozen as the 11-year-old little brother that I left at home when I went off to college. Luckily we can still act goofy and have fun together, no matter how old we get!

Oh yeah, we took one of these too. It was after church during Jay’s nap time, so he was being extra-emotional. That’s why we didn’t try to take the basketball away from him.

We also had to take a triple-generation girl picture, since Rose is the first great-granddaughter!

This was the first time Jay and Rose met their Great Grama and Grampa Gwynn. Love. Jay must be wondering just how many grandmas this world holds—we tell him that so many women are Raa-mah. He loves them all, though!

Here’s another one.

Ok, I have to mention the glorious food my mom cooked for us. She pulled out all the stops and made cheesy polenta with heavenly mushroom sauce, juicy spice-rubbed chicken with mango cilantro salad, steak with corn, melons, potato salad, and orange jello fluff, smoked salmon alfredo on quinoa, and also lime-coconut cupcakes. De-LISH-ious! (spelled wrong for emphasis on the yumminess of mom’s cookin’) Go mom, GO!! She is one of the kitchen goddesses that I strive to emulate. We Browns love food.

And also, the favorite Aunt Mel. She was in the midst of studying for her final exams, but she still found time to play with her niece and neph.

I think I’ll write one more HURRAH FOR KYLE!!!!