Prom

And so we arrive at the arrival of Caelan's prom date, Mr. H. It's funny because at karate, the black belts refer to each other by Mr. or Miss or Mrs. plus last name. When Mr. H appeared at our door, he looked very dapper. B was impressed with his vest and bow tie, which matched Caelan's dress. Mr. H came up the stairs and complemented the boys on their testing just an hour before. Graysen said, "Thank you, Sir!" As his instructor, he also calls him "sir" by instinct. I thought it was great!

When Mr. H's parents arrived after him, he was eager to greet them. I said, "Go ahead and welcome them in, just pretend you live here." His mom laughed as he opened the door and  he said, "They told me I could let you in!" Then he did a sweeping gesture with his arm and said, "Approach the stairs of destiny." I'm not sure if the goofy mood is his personality or the fact that he had been helping with testing (including being the self defense dummy for the Krav guys) since 10 o'clock that morning! His mom and dad were just laughing.

They are very nice people, we talked easily together. We both tried to take pictures of Caelan and Nick trying to figure out the flowers, and kept getting in each others' way. Mr. H Sr. said, "Suzy, get out of the picture." I said, "Oh, no, you're fine!!! Graysen . . . get out of the picture!!" Ha!













While our neighbors peered over fences and through windows (and texts rolled in about how pretty and happy Caelan looked), I led the parade to my first picture destination--the one blooming lilac :)



I also thought it would be fun to do a sparring gloves picture, since that is a bit more typical of how these two spend time together. Along with Gabby, they have a great time working together at the karate school.



You'll see from the pictures below the problem with my test photo lighting and background schemes . . . Gabby fit the picture perfectly, Mr. H is a whole lot taller! Ha! I though the fence would be a great place, until I saw the sun shining through on his face, making odd shadows. Didn't have that problem with Gabby's nice photos ;)




















So . . .

So we decided at the last minute (and it really was because
they had 10 minutes to get to their dinner reservation) to go find the pretty trees blooming everywhere but in our yard. Just down the street there is a church whose parking lot is lined with them! I tried calling earlier to get permission, but the offices were closed on Saturday. Surely they wouldn't mind :) I am happy we took the extra time to do an on-location shot, these trees to me are just so memorable! The one time of beauty in this otherwise industrial, railroad town.








Mr. H was quite the gentleman, helping Caelan into the car, opening and closing the door for her. It was all very sweet :) I stayed and chatted with Nick's parents for awhile in the parking lot, and got his mom's number. They volunteered to chaperone after-prom, so it was nice to have another contact there if needed. But, it's not like I needed it . . . not only did Caelan text me every time they arrived at a new location, but so did Nick! It was great to be well informed (and I tracked them on google maps, too :) 

Caelan said she enjoyed her lasagna dinner, and that they were the first to arrive at the dance. She liked seeing all the girls follow in their fancy dresses. As it turned out, she was the only one with a short dress (and here she'd had her heart set on a long one :) She said Nick didn't know how to slow dance, so she was able to teach him what she'd learned with Brennen earlier in the day. And there was only one slow song the entire night, so not too much practice was needed. She thought there were about 50 people at the dance, it was decorated with flowers and gold accents. There was a dj and some snacks and a photo booth. She said the photo booth guy was on his phone the whole time, so she helped the others figure out how to take pictures and print extras (well, the photo booth guy might have added some input for the extras).

She met lots of Nick's friends, including the German foreign exchange student who could not wait to meet her! She said this girl ran up and gave her a huge hug :) Must have been the DNA talking, since Buck's family has German heritage. By all accounts, she had a wonderful time at prom! 




Caelan said the after-prom was even better . . . there were trampolines, and dodge ball, and foam pit battles, and virtual reality opportunities to walk the plank from 80 stories up! She likely would have stayed until the 2:30 a.m. end time, but Buck and I could not keep our eyes open. I actually fell asleep at midnight, and set an alarm for 12:45 to go get her at one. Buck ended up insisting on doing the pick up, which I was grateful for :) We're too old for this staying out all night stuff ;) 

Our original plan included church at 8 a.m., then nursery service at 9:30 . . . but we decided we needed a bit of sleep, so we did do nursery and all the classes the kids are in (Gabby was lead teacher to a zoo of children, and Buck and I had a dozen babies, who seemed to cry in a domino effect pattern!). Buck left for work, and the rest of us stayed for the late service. Prom on Saturday, church on Sunday morning. It was a tradition when I was in school; I'm glad to see it last to another generation :)