We Made It! Parts 1 & 2 anyway....

I've known for weeks this was going to be a harrowing weekend but we've officially made it through part 2 of graduation festivities. Part 1 was last weekend's Bender Family Fun Day. It was all family and all fun. You know, just because you call something "fun day" doesn't mean it will necessarily pan out that way. And, sometimes forcing family into a "fun day" makes it less fun but that was not the case last weekend!

So, today was open house for our sweet Rica Rain. And I am officially exhausted. Mom, Shiela, and I started yesterday afternoon with as many decorations and prepping as was possible. After a brief 90 minute dinner break, Shil and I were back at it until around 9. After she left I did some final cleaning and fell into bed around 10:30 utterly exhausted. This morning she picked me up at 9 a.m. and we were off running again. Balloons, final Costco run and all that jazz. It paid off. Here it is 12 hours later and it's all over. We had 4 hours of people in and out but alas it is just Steve, Sam, Jake and I enjoying a very quiet hour before we hit the bed exhausted again.

Tomorrow we go again - after a really long day at church we'll head to the Metra for the graduation ceremony which will run late since it doesn't start until 7 p.m. for crying out loud! After that, just one more long day (Monday) and I can relax and breath the rest of the week. Here's a few pics from family fun day last week and open house today.

First was a scavenger hunt and Erica's first stop was to pick up her valuable package:

This is Erica asking if she can return her valuable package for a refund...um, nice try, but no!

This is one of the stops. We tried to make sure the clues required both of them to solve and then attempted to have tasks for them to do together. You know, to make her appreciate her brother! This one was a 3 legged walk to find a snack hidden in the park. She really should be nice to him -- he's only 10 and is the same height as she is...


Family bowling!




Today's open house:

Me. Totally exhausted. And we still had an hour of open house left.