These past two weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind and although they were loads of fun, it’s good to be back to our regular routine again. So many exciting/interesting things have happened recently and I want to tell you about them ALL. So over the next week or so I’ll be sharing a few of those stories, but let’s start with graduation… shall we?
The morning of The Girl Who Thinks She’s a Bird’s graduation, the HH gave her a few carefully wrapped presents. Normally he just throws stuff in a grocery sack and says “Here, this is for you” but this time he actually drove to Target, wasted money on bought some wrapping paper and then spent a good hour wrapping her gifts. 😉
And no, he didn’t run out of paper. I know this because I found a second unused roll on my closet floor {doesn’t everybody wrap gifts in their closet} along with some packing tape and scissors.
I’ve offered to give him wrapping lessons before, but really, at this point, why bother. He’s got a system going on here and I wouldn’t want to crush his artistic abilities now would I? 😉
After present time was over, we met my parents for brunch at a local restaurant before heading to the graduation ceremony that was taking place about a half an hour away.
The Girl had to be at the graduation ceremony 1 hour before it started, so the plan was the boys would go with my parents in their car {it seats 4} and The Girl and I would leave brunch a little early and drive our car {also seats 4} and I would drop her off then head into the auditorium and reserve some seats for my parents, the HH and Monkey Boy.
And everything was going great at brunch until it was time for The Girl and I to leave.
I asked the HH for the car keys.
He just stared at me.
And then he went pale.
He had inadvertently left the car key in his jacket pocket and at the last moment decided to take off his coat and leave it in the car before heading into the restaurant for brunch.
Nice huh?
Sooo…. I quickly grabbed my parents car keys and The Girl and I raced home to find the spare car key. But when we got home we couldn’t find the extra car key. AWESOME.
We then realized if we couldn’t find my extra car key then we wouldn’t be able to grab her graduation cap and gown out of the car and holy crap we are already late and now have only 45 minutes to get to the graduation because we had to race home to look for the extra key which we couldn’t find.
What to do????
Deep breath.
In a panic, The Girl called her friend who had graduated last year and asked if she could borrow her gown and sash. Luckily she was home and so I told The Girl to drive her car to her friends house to pick up the gown and then meet me back at the restaurant to pick me up {I still had my parents car at this point and I needed to get it back to them so they could get to graduation as well}.
So get this. As I’m driving back to the restaurant I get a call. From the HH. Wondering where I am at. Long story short. He found the key. IN HIS PANTS POCKET!!!!
Yada Yada Yada, The Girl pulls into the parking lot, leaves her friends borrowed gown in her car, hops in my car, I toss my parents keys to the HH and The Girl and I rush off to graduation.
Fast forward….
12 minutes before graduation is suppose to start The Girl and I are sitting on the freeway in bumper to bumper traffic about a 1/4 mile from our exit {along with a ton of other kids and families} freaking out. Then, we see one kid pile out of their parents car and start running down the freeway ramp towards the building where graduation is suppose to take place {about 1 mile from where we are all parked on the freeway in traffic}. And then another and another, and then before you know it there are about 20, 30? kids running down the freeway ramp.
The Girl jumped out and joined them along with Mrs. Activewear and her daughter. It was CRAZY on a stick let me tell you. C.R.A.Z.Y.
Then right after that, Mr. Activewear pulls ahead of me in his car and takes a left turn {we were suppose to turn right} so I follow him of course thinking he knows something I don’t.
And he did.
We each toss $3 into the money slots at the secret parking lot then run like the wind to graduation.
Once inside I call the HH to see where they are. Oddly enough he was only about 5 minutes away.
Luckily graduation was delayed a few minutes and we all made it to our seats just in time.
Wowza! What a morning!
~Mavis
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Julie says
That is awesome. (My daughter just graduated as well, and the trip to Showare center in Kent was just downright boring in comparison to that story!)
Mavis Butterfield says
Congrats! 🙂
Beth says
Wow! Your story sounds like something that would happen in our life…only in our life, we would be cursing at each other…and I would be plotting my husband’s death…but later it would be ok and we would laugh…
Mavis Butterfield says
Husbands are funny, aren’t they? 😉
Stacey says
I’m not glad that you had to go through the stress, but happy for you and your daughter because you have a great story to tell about it!
jody says
But just think about the great story your family has now! You will never forget the day of your daughter’s graduation!
Mavis Butterfield says
Ahhh yes. Thanks Dad. 🙂
Lisa Millar says
Brilliant story!! That’s one ceremony you won’t forget in a hurry!
Congratulations to yor daughter for graduating!
PS Looking at the photos above, did she get that wonderful looking camera as her grad present??
Mavis Butterfield says
Yes! 🙂 She LOVES photography. 🙂
Sarah says
What a sight to see all those graduates running to the exit! A fantastic memory.
Delores says
Oh my goodness, that is hilarious. After the fact, of course, but what a story!
More importantly: how did you fare during the week? I know she hasn’t left for college yet, so that goal is still there, but did you survive the graduation week without too much turmoil? 🙂
Tina B says
That sounds like something in my past with all my kids and the craziness that went along with having 5 kids all within 10 years’ time span. Whew! Maybe next year your daughter’s school will actually host the graduation ceremony AT the high school, rather than a venue far enough away that it required highway travel (and running along the highway too!).
All the high school graduations I’ve gone to (my own and my kid’s graduations) were held at their respective high schools. Proms were another matter, and their venues were why I never got to attend. Something about an inexperienced teenage girl driver crossing toll bridges and taking unfamiliar highways in the dark to get there and back played a part in my parent’s refusal. 🙂
Tina B says
I forgot to say congratulations to your daughter on her graduation, Mavis. Congratulations!!! It is definitely a milestone moment in a person’s and a parent’s life, isn’t it? Having attended my second son’s college graduation last month, I have a fresh feeling of the immense pride that comes with seeing the culmination of all their hard work.
E says
If my high school held my graduation in our school’s auditorium, over half the graduating students couldn’t attend and with no audience! We HAD to have graduation someplace else. Location was the same one where the 3-ring circus performed [not at the same time]. The graduates filled the entire floor. Tickets were carefully handed out. Those needing more than 3 had to request them, and they were in the nose bleed area.
Congratulations Mavis and the same to your daughter. Sounds like you have quite a story for this milestone event!
Tammy says
What a crazy story! Makes for good memories!!!
JC says
Tina B, some graduating classes are so big that there is no way to hold the event at the school. Heck, our gym can only hold one GRADE at a time. My kids’ classes had 600 grads, and each grad was given 10 tickets for family with more available upon request. Does your high school gym/auditorium hold 7000 people? Our graduations are held at our local college’s sports arena.
kcb says
I’m outta breath just reading this. Congratulations to The Girl.
randy says
my. You may have gotten a gray hair over this one. HH had better be extra nice this month
Heather says
Mavis…Congrats on the graduate! I love that story and the image of them running on the freeway! Keys…darn them anyway. I was being cute a few years back and tossed my hubby they key and due to my less than accurate tossing abilities it landed in the bushes of a thick shrub. Mind you, not in our yard…on vacation! We couldn’t find it and had to get a ride to a rental place to get our hands on a metal detector for 15 bucks vs. the $275 we would have paid to get it re-keyed and unlocked. And I had a spare key in my purse which was on my arm…which we didn’t realize until after we went back to pay for our rental fee! Whomp! Whomp!
Tracy L. says
Oh Mavis!!!!! I am laughing hysterically, this is an excerpt from our lives! I have that same HH. You can ALWAYS depend on him to put extra turns and twists into life! I read it to him, he laughed and said sounds like us!
Sad, but true. You just gotta laugh, cause otherwise you’ll kill him!
Mavis Butterfield says
I agree. You just have to laugh. 🙂
Helen in Meridian says
This sounds like a game you can play with your boy and his buddies. Smart girl to know her friend would even know where her robe and mortar board hat were a year later. She definitely has great survival skills and will make it wherever she roams. I am not sure your dh has such skills. My dh has learned to wrap beautifully after only having to wrap gifts to me after 40 years. I wrap for 25 plus people. Sorta like carving that pumpkin once a year. Once you master one face, you can always carve a good pumpkin once a year.
lilton says
Oh, I just read this from your link from today’s daily post. Wowza is right! Oddly, a similar thing happened to one of my 4-H club members when he graduated a few years ago, except the back-up occurred on the interstate about 30 minutes from the graduation venue. As it turns out, there had been a major pile-up accident that left slews of graduating seniors walking across the interstate bridge in their caps and gowns to meet buses that came to fetch them for the now-delayed graduation ceremony. And my 4-Her? He and his buddies weren’t involved in the accident, and I’m proud to say he stopped to help a pregnant woman and her baby out of their car before rejoining his friends. 🙂