My Graduation!

I keep meaning to write a post on my graduation which happened June 22nd. It's almost, but not quite, a month later. I am so sorry that I have not posted anything! Life has been extremely crazy busy with my graduation and all of that preparation, the Barnards staying for eight days. (That was beyond imaginable fun. It was totally awesome, epic, wonderful, and more!) Then Grandparents from Florida came, then the Barnards returned for a day and a half, and then the crazy mad dash of getting 4-H projects completed in one week began. :)

Oh, and might I add, the Freetown Festival, singing at a fish fry Sunday night, singing at the prejudging of the Jackson County 4-H Talent Show on Monday.....such is the life of a Long kid. Never gets boring.

Needless to say....this is why I have not posted anything since May 29th. Oh boy...that's like almost two months ago. Shameful!

So! I digress and move on to my graduation party....

My party really began with the prep work. Honestly, with all of the help and fun we had...the preparation was a party in itself! Oh, and the play practice the night before and the morning of my party.

Anyway, amidst the prep work the Barnards arrived. We all felt terrible that all they received in the way of greeting was a quick hug and a joy-filled hello. They unpacked and got their things settled in while the rest of us were still running around like chickens with no heads.

While David was checking the sound system, Daniel, his brother, was telling a couple of the kids a story. He had music and voice effects. It was quite hilarious!
After that we had a quick play practice and then we finished preparations.

Here are pictures of what all our hard work resulted into.

The cupcake stand.

The card box

My display table. These are different things that are major parts in my life. My mom did an awesome job, did she not?

At 1:00 people began to arrive. Because I was the graduate I had to greet everyone and thank them for coming. I'm a people person. I really am, but greeting all of those people? Just a tiny bit daunting and intimidating.

One of the first people to arrive was a pen pal and one of my best friends whom I had not seen since last May. Kylen Burns.

Kylen and I

Here are a few of the many people who came:

Our dear adopted Grandma Felda

Some of the Smith family. It was delightful having them there! :) And we are still holding your volleyball net hostage! :)

Daddy's sister, Aunt Tanya

My darling niece, Jade

And here is my other beautiful niece, Mila.

That's just a few of the people who came. 

We ate and then I played the Maple Leaf Rag to gain everyone's attention. Once I had it, I played Debussy Arabesque no.1 

Then....the speeches. 

Dad and Mom spoke first.

The wonderful audience. :)

Stephanie spoke next.

Then Emily

Older brother Josh spoke

And last but not least of all, I spoke.

I cannot remember what all I said. I had written out a rough draft, but I didn't end up using it. I remembered all of the main points, but there were some things that I wanted to share from my heart. So I did. :)

After the torturous speeches, I dislike public speaking, Daniel Johnson did a comedy routine.   

Daniel Johnson giving his comedy routine..

When he was finished us girls sang. 

I sang two songs that I wrote and then we sang This is Freedom and How Great Thou Art. Two of my favorite songs we do.

Us girls singing. You'll never find a flattering picture of anyone singing. :P

While all of the play actors went down to the house and got into costume, the Bell family sang. 

The Bell family.

The next thing we did was perform The Princess and the Kiss play. I regret to say that there are no pictures of the play whatsoever. Here's what happened:

When we began performing it was already sprinkling. I believe the camera got put away at that time. We were almost finished with the first act when it began to down pour. That stopped everything. People rushed to put the sound system and the piano on the stage. Lots of people gathered on the stage. Others left, and still more sought shelter underneath the tree house, and in the actual house. 

I got stuck on the stage in my costume along with the three princes. Josh, Isaac, Emily, and Corrie changed out of their costumes and played in the rain and cleaned up the food and such. When the rain finally stopped, the men put away the sound system. We gathered the remaining faithful guests and performed the play a capella. Basically we had no microphones and no sound effects or music. This was a real bummer to all, but I was still glad that we were able to perform it. 

After we had taken our last bow all of us changed out of costume. Quite a number of us ended up playing Ultimate Frisbee in the Soccer, a.k.a septic field, in the pouring rain. It felt good to get wet after all of the humid heat. We ended up having the hot dog roast and finished out the party at 10:30. 

Thank you to those who helped with the preparations. That was a huge help and we were blessed by your willingness to serve. 

Thank you play actors for being willing to perform even without the sound system. :)

Thank you to all of my guests for coming and especially for those of you who stuck around even after it started raining. 

My graduation party was a ton of fun! 

My Covenant Ceremony

This past Friday evening, a special event took place around my house. My covenant ceremony. 

As you can see from the pictures, this isn't some simple affair. It's serious.

Unlike Stephanie and Emily's covenant ceremonies, I wanted more than just my family and pastor to be there. My friends help shape me into being the person that I am. They are my peers, and help to keep me in line.
So, with more than just my family there, as you can see, it made it all the more special. Even more so because a family of 13 was there. We've been pen pals with this family for almost a year and just met them in person last week. 

There is one table not shown here, but that's just about all of them. :)

Dinner was fabulous.

And so were the desserts! Which were homemade Profiterole Puffs, they're just like cream puffs, and Caramel Custard

After we finished this luscious meal, we all gathered in a semi-circle around the beautifully decorated arbor.

Dad gave a little speech thanking everyone for coming, and explaining what the purpose of this covenant ceremony was: my decision to place myself under my father's protection and to wait for God's leading in the direction of a future life partner. 

Mom explained the reason why my covenant was different than the other two girls'.

Pastor then spoke about me. His message was touching, and tear-jerking, for me at least. :)

After that, we invited anyone who wanted to speak. Stephanie and Emily gave me a heart warming and challenge-filled speech. My pseudo brother Josh spoke as well. That was tear-jerking too.

I sang the song, 'Thank You Mama and Papa accompanied by Stephanie on the guitar.

The covenant signing followed suit. 

Daddy read his vows to me:

• I will protect you from unqualified men.
• I will teach you God's principles of life.
• I will pray for you and for God's choice of your life partner.

I in turn, read my vows to daddy:

• I will keep myself pure for my husband
• I will obtain your blessing on my courtship
• I will wait for your full release before entering into marriage. 

We both signed it, and pastor witnessed and dated the document.

Daddy then presented me with a special ring as a symbol of our vows. 

By then we were both crying...

Daddy finished the whole ceremony up with a blessing/prayer for me.

A slew of pictures were taken after that. 

Each of these dear girls have made similar covenants with their dads. They are the ones who are to keep me accountable to the covenant I have made. 

Here's a close-up of the signed covenant;

And the ring! I love this simple little 14k white gold ring. It doesn't look fancy or anything, but I'm not one to have baubles or big things on my rings. With it being so small, it's easier to play piano with. 

The engraved design is the key to my heart under my father's umbrella of protection. 

Prayer

Courtesy of Photobucket

Hi all!
I haven't written a blog post in two weeks, so I thought it was high time I wrote one! :D
I don't really have anything particular to write about, but I have a few things in mind that I'd like to share with you all.

 I have collected a lot of prayer requests for several different people.
Jackie: she is a young adult and has developed Lymphoma. She needs a lot of prayer to have the strength to get through this.

Elliot Ray: he is having surgery on Tuesday to go have some gallstones removed, and if I'm correct his gallbladder as well. So I can imagine that he needs some serious prayer!

Lauren: She is having some joint problems and such. She is in a lot of pain all the time, but she is a strong minded girl and doesn't hardly ever let her friends know that she is in pain. And she has what sounds like Bronchitis. :(

Aiden: He has Leukemia. He is four-years-old and his mom is only twenty-four. They are having a particular hard time.

Rachelle: my best friend has, well, nobody really knows what. She has been sick since this past Wednesday and she needs prayer.

Last, but not least, myself. I honestly don't know what is wrong with me. My doctors are still trying to figure it out. Basically, for all of you who don't know, I started out back in July of 2011 with my right hip swelling. It was just ever so slight, but then my leg started to swell. Then I began to have leg pains quite frequently. I had a couple of bone scans, x-rays, and CT scans. All of which revealed that nothing was wrong with my bones. I went to a few specialists, and was diagnosed with Bursitis. I was then assigned physical therapy, and an anti-inflammatory drug. This was all just a trial run to see if the Bursitis had developed on it's own or if there was an underlying problem. The medicine and physical therapy did nothing, except cause me to have bad side effects and irritate my leg. Just this past week I have been having terrible leg pains and slight seizures. I am scheduled to have an MRI on Tuesday. I'm nervous about the whole thing, as I have never had one before and I'm also nervous as to what the doctors might find. So, if you all could just pray that I would have total peace with resting in Jesus' arms and giving Him the whole situation to do with as he pleases, that would be super!! And don't forget the afore said people. :D