May 28, 2016

Graduation Party

May 28, 2016

Our grandson

 

Our son Jeff's oldest son graduated from the Johnston Academy this month.  The Johnston Academy is the name the family gave to their home school.  This young man has been home schooled since he started his education.  His mother has been his teacher for 12 years.  In recent years, some of his classes were video classes or on line classes, but it was still up to his mother to take care of assignments and classroom work.  He did well in school but sometimes put off assignments as long as possible.  In many ways he is a normal teenager and in others he is as outstanding a young man as can be found.  He has excelled in piano, scouting, writing short stories, and Bible memory work.  He is a fun young man.

 Here are Ron and I with our grandson where he had 

been playing some music on their baby grand piano.

 

The actual graduation ceremony was earlier in May.  Several home schooled seniors came together for the graduation ceremony and it was very well done.  It was so personalized.  Then the party was Saturday evening, May 28.  

M&Ms specially printed for the party

 

A few days ago his mother asked if I would like to make the cake for his party.  Of course I would!  I asked if she had anything particular in mind and she suggested clowns.  For his first birthday I did a cake with clowns on it and those clowns have become a family tradition.  There were many captions I considered for the cake.  He has enjoyed being the class clown.  He can be very serious, but has a wonderful sense of humor.  I predict it will take him far through the rough times in life.

Ron got me up at 5:30 as I had requested so I could get the cake baked.  I worked in the kitchen for a while preparing for the job ahead.  I baked the cake (3 cake mixes) and late in the morning, I started the decorating.  I made a huge batch of frosting and instead of the usual clown heads I use on the clowns for the cake, I had found some small plastic figures that I was able to add graduation hats to for the clowns.

There was a billboard on the back of the cake proclaiming that he had graduated and telling of his future plans to attend college in Florida at Pensacola Christian College.  He and his dad flew to Florida a few weeks ago to visit the college and made a final decision.  He is now eagerly awaiting the time to head to Florida in the late summer.

Ron helped me during the early afternoon as I was finishing up some of the decorations.  I wanted the billboard spray painted brown.  I had found the paint and started to spray in on a box to be sure it was still good and the color I wanted.  Somehow I managed to spray it into my eyes.  I hurried into the house calling to Ron and handing him the spray can as I started washing my eyes out.  I asked him to read what it said to do if "spray gets in eyes."  It said wash eyes with large amounts of water.  So I did that.  Thankfully it worked. 

Ron took over the painting and construction of the billboard.  He did a very nice job.  And he didn't get any paint on himself.  He also helped on reconstruction of some of the little figures for the clown heads.  I put part of the cake together at home but put the finishing touches on it when we arrived in McAllen a little early for the party.

Other home school graduates 

The cake turned out very nice.  It was yummy as well as cute.  I enjoy doing cake decorating in my spare time but I manage to get the entire kitchen dirty in the process.  I left a big clean up job to come home to late last night.

The cake, finished

 

The party was from 5:00 - 8:00 and included a delicious supper and lots of snack foods.  There was a good turnout.  Most of the home school students who participated in the graduation came to the party along with many of their parents.  There were friends from our church here in Brownsville, their church in McAllen, family, and assorted other friends.

Long time friends and new friends 

 

The food was great.  They had made pulled pork burgers, several types of salads, several choices of chips, sodas, veggie trays, fresh fruits, and cake.  Since I had not had time to eat all day, I was glad for the delicious buffet choices.

Visiting with old friends

 

People stayed and visited, getting acquainted with new friends and watching a video in the living room of photos from the graduate's growing up years.  Several younger children were there and were quickly drawn into play with the younger children in the family.

An evening of fun for all ages

 

It was about 10:15 before we left to head home and we arrived about 11:30.  The children had spent time playing with the growing puppies, and the cats. 

What a joy it was to celebrate this young man's accomplishments.  He has so many possibilities ahead of him.  He plans to major in Pastoral Studies.  It will be interesting to see where God leads him in the years to come.