Celebration and Fishing

On May 9th, my best friend's husband, Marcus, finally graduated college! I say finally because it feels like he has been in college forever. In reality though, he has finished ahead of schedule since he took several classes while he was still in high school. He is a self described computer geek but is amazingly talented. Becky, my best friend, was so excited to see him walk across the stage. Now he can spend more time at home and less time in class or doing homework. Becky had a party for Marcus at their house after the graduation ceremony and invited their friends and people from their work and church. I took my cousin Harli with me and we had tons of fun. It was great to see Madelyn and Becky's brother, Bobby, since it had been a few months.

I was extremely worried she wouldn't remember me and when I first arrived, I thought she didn't. Madelyn took off running when I walked in..so I followed her. She was sitting on the floor in her bedroom with a photo album on her lap. When I walked in, she was furiously flipping the pages.

Suddenly she stop and starting pointing to a picture of us, saying "There you are!!". It melted my heart and literally brought tears to my eyes!

After the party, the family had a fish fry at my Aunt's house in Thomson. I arrived late and missed dinner, but I'm not a big fish eater so it wasn't a big deal. Brandon and I had decided to spend the night since we were planning to go to the lake the next morning for Mother's Day. We shared a hotel room with my mom and stepfather, Bob. I thought it would be awkward and uncomfortable...but, as soon as we got back to the room that night, mom and Bob both fell asleep within 10 minutes.


The next morning, we all took Bob's pontoon boat on Clarks Hill Lake. We knew there was a chance of storms, so we were not sure how long we'd be able to stay. One of my aunts and her fiance were camping near by, so they met up with us in their boat. My other aunt came later with her husband and my cousin. They also brought my Granny...and her oxygen tank..and her new dog.

Granny didn't stay long, but the rest of us spent several hours fishing and riding around. I have assigned myself a seat on the boat, which everyone knows is my seat. The seat is at the front of the boat, and I have my own cupholder and live well. The only problem (which really isn't a problem) is that my seat is not covered by the shade canopy. While I wore sunscreen this time, it apparently wasn't enough because I got burnt to a crisp.

Mom was the only one who caught any fish which was fitting since it was Mother's Day..we let her win!

As the day went on, the clouds got darker so we decided to load the boat and head home a little early.

Brandon and I had purchased a GPS system a few days earlier so I kept myself occupied with it the whole way home.