Homecoming

Homecoming was last night. Tanner was the ring leader of a group with 4 other couples. Gavin Thatcher was in his group.  His Aunt has a beautiful house up above Coronodo High School and a big, beautiful backyard.  She let us have dinner up there for the group.  Cynjyn and Maggie were the servers.   

Tanner's date was Emily Olds.

The group was Dustin Marshall and Katie Barker, Aaron Schwarze and McKenna Borla, Emily and Tanner, Miranda Quinton and Bryant Nielson. and Ashley Eddington and Gavin Thathcer.

Gavin's Aunt Wendy has a beautiful landscaped "hill" leading up to a golf course. The kids loved playing around on it, and we got a lot of fun pictures.

Toni had the table set simple, but beautiful with Wendy's gold plates.  We served them dinner starting with grapes, strawberries and cheese and crackers and my slush punch while they waited for their turn for pictures.  Then we served them ceasar salad with some plates of three different kinds of breads.  Then for the main course, they had pork loin, crockpot potatoes, and green beans. 

They sure loved posing at the top of the hill.

 After they kids left, Maggie, Cynjyn and I walked to the top of the hill and enjoyed the view of the city lights.

 After dinner, they were supposed to go to the planitarium and do a star gazing show, but they didn't make it in time, so they just went to a park and talked. Earlier in the day they all went to Bite of Las Vegas which is an all day celebration and they saw Philip Phillips perform. Anyway, after their non visit to the planitarium, they came back to Toni's and we had her walk way lined with our Christmas lanterns and the back yard set up as a dance floor and they danced a little and talked a lot and played some group games.

 We filled balloons with glow sticks to put around the "dance floor".  They looked pretty cool.

 Earlier in the week, Toni, Cheryl and I got together with Debbie Witt who helped us make the corsages for our son's dates.  (Toni's, mine, Cheryl's).

 We were all thrilled with how they turned out.

  About half way through the dancing and games, we served them cheesecake and then I went home and they continued to party.  Tanner was home by midnight and had a great time.  So did Cynjyn, Maggie, Toni and I!!

A funny thing happened...

So, I was moving right along in my own little blog world. I've been happily taking a picture a day for Project Life.  I am on my third year now, and this year I'm doing my first digital version and so I am faithfully uploading and recording our life weekly.  I got a little behind on blogging due to a busy summer, but all in all it was good.  I managed to get some pictures of Taz turning 14.

And Taz's road rash injury.

And Alexa and Cynjyn making One Direction T-shirts.

I even captured the first day of school.  Tanner is a senior,

Taz is a Freshman,

And Cynjyn is in 6h grade starting her first year of Middle School!

Taz is on the cross country team and this is a picture of him crossing the finish line at his first meet!

Then sometime over the summer, I discovered a new app on my phone. Instagram! I know it's been around for awhile, but it was new to me.  Suddenly, I didn't have to have my big camera with me at all times.  I had never really taken advantage of my phone camera.  I just never thought of it...but here it was with me at all times and I could intantly post something happening in our lives and put it out there for my loved ones and friends to see.  I was never a big fan of Facebook, I didn't really care for the idea of putting my thoughts and what I was doing at the moment out there, but if I can do that with a picture involved...I'm sold.  And that's exactly what Instagram is.  The thing I love about it is that I can take a zillion pictures of one little moment in my life and that moment is visualized and remembered forever!  I love all the free templates available online that allow me to quickly and easily put my pictures in a scrapbook format and I can print them out and collage them as I like.  Here was our evening at the Knights of the Roundtable dinner show!

And the randomness of spending time with family while they are here on vacation in August.

I can even make a collage on my phone and post to Instagram.  It allows me to document the picture also by putting a camption when I post.  Now, the thing I don't like is that once you've posted, they are just out there, waiting, no physical evidence.  That is what I like about bloging, I can slurp it into a "book" and print it out and have my life story here in my house for me and my family to enjoy!

So, I've been happily taking pictures and even uploading them onto my Project Life book, but blogging seems to have taken a time out for awhile.  I do know for sure that I will continue taking "snippets" of our lives on my phone camera and now I will collage them and post to the blog.  I will try to keep the blog more frequently updated and you will surely be seeing a lot more instagram collages as I "catch up" on life in the Goon household. (even though most of you who read my blog also follow me on Instagram) To bad, this is my journal and it must be documented!