Graduation Trip

We couldn't do anything too fancy, but Joe and I wanted to go on a little trip with Cora, just by ourselves. Before you know it, she's going to be out of this house, and we'll miss her like crazy, so we've got to make the most of the time we have left ;) I looked at places that were within about 5-8 hours drive away from where we live, and I proposed 5 different trips to Cora and let her choose. She decided to go to Branson, Missouri.

Joe says Branson is like the family-friendly version of Las Vegas, because of the plethora of live entertainment shows there. It is located in the Ozark Mountains, and aside from the live entertainment, it also has a lot of outdoor attractions, a theme park, water park, museums, and of course shopping and restaurants. Cora chose Branson specifically for the Titanic Museum there.

It is one of 2 Titanic Museums owned by John Joslyn (who headed the 1987 expedition to it). 

Everyone who works there is dressed in period clothes. You get boarding passes as you enter of actual passengers, and at the end you find out if they survived or not. 

You can't take any pictures inside, but it was really impressive. Afterwards we walked around town and had lunch.

  We ran into a Dodge car show and looked around there....

And then we passed by the car museum and saw some more fun ones outside.

We then drove over to Top of the Rock Ozarks Heritage Preserve. This whole resort area was owned and built by Johnny Morris (founder of Bass Pro Shops), his vision being to maintain  Missouri's history and natural beauty. It includes Big Cedar Lodge, the Chapel of the Ozarks, a wine cellar, restaraunts and Top of the Rock golf course, a world class championship golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus.

No, we didn't go golfing, but we did drive a golf cart around the Lost Canyon Cave and Nature Trail. It was kind of expensive (pretty sure everything there is), but it's never boring to drive around in a golf cart, and it was SO BEAUTIFUL! I think it was well worth it.

Then we discovered they also had the Ancient Ozarks Natural History Museum, plus we got a discount because we already did the Nature Trail, so we thought, sure, why not. I'm glad we went. This museum is fantastic for many reasons - it has the carbon-dated skeletal remains of a woolly mammoth, a saber tooth cat, and a giant sloth.

But the majority of the museum seems to be focused on the history of the Native Americans who lived in this area, their way of life, and their conservation efforts. Amazing.

 

 

 And also they have a lock of Abraham Lincoln's hair. Say what???!!!

 
 After the museum we went to dinner. But not just any old dinner, oh no. We went to Dolly Parton Stampede Dinner Show. Oh yes we did.

This over-the-top-cheesey-as-can-be show was.....fun - if you like that sort of thing ;) It was a big arena, and the show featured 32 horses (the real stars of the show), trick riders, songs and dance.

The songs weren't Dolly Parton songs, and she made no appearance. No, I wasn't thinking Dolly Parton would actually be there, but still, boooooo! And then there was a whole "friendly" competition between the North and South sides of the arena. Uncomfortable? Sort of . Inappropriate? Possibly. And I DID leave a wordy comment about the portrayals of cowboys and Indians. So all in all, would I recommend it? I don't know. It's not for everyone. They did have good food though,, and a LOT of it. Actually, the funnest part of the whole thing was the pre-show. We could have watched these guys all night long.

And that was it. That was our trip. On our way home, the 29 was flooded AGAIN, so we had to take a different route again, but we got home just fine. It will be interesting to see what trips our other kids choose for their graduation trips. We realized that there is so much to do in Branson that we could go back there every time and have a completely different trip every time.....but we'll leave that up to them :)

Holy Family Shrine

My friend Ilese and I went on our second adventure. This time it was her turn to choose. There is a beautiful building that you can see off the I-80 here, and for years she's wanted to check it out, but never had. It turns out that it is the Holy Family Shrine, a catholic shrine (not a church) intended as a place for people of all faiths to come and find rest and solitude, a place to pray and feel the spirit. The grounds and chapel are so beautiful, and are so well integrated, it just feels so natural. I especially loved the water running around and through the chapel. Everywhere you went you could here the steady stream of water, and it was so peaceful. We really enjoyed our visit there, even though it was a crazy rainy day.

Puzzled

My Dad and Lynn were able to come out for Cora's graduation, which really meant a lot to us. They were here for a few days, so I took them around to see a few things like the candy shop, the temple, the Pioneer Trail center, and the Kanesville Tabernacle (which I hadn't been to before). I just wanted to take them wherever THEY wanted to go. But I think the best part of the trip for my Dad came when we were having a discussion about the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and I suddenly remembered that I had actually bought a 1,000 piece puzzle of it when we were at the Vatican, and we had never put it together. My Dad was instantly obsessed. We spent the next I-don't-know-how-many days/hours putting it together. I knew that he wanted to finish it before they left, so I didn't give up, or even take breaks like I normally would. The last few hours before they had to leave for their flight, we recruited Lynn and Cora to help us finish. It was a nail-biting finish, but we literally put the last piece in at the exact time we needed to leave for the airport. It was glorious, and we hurried and snapped a photo to commemorate the occasion.

Class of 2019

Something happened. It's been a long time coming, but it still unexpectedly jumped out of the bushes and wacked me in the face, so to speak. Cora graduated from high school!

 Coming into the arena

 Cora got a special tassel for being in the International Thespian Society (no cords, like at other high schools....oh well).

 Cora on stage, accepting her diploma

 Graduates exiting the arena. Cora's just as excited now as she was when they entered ;)

Wow. Crazy. I might have shed a tear or two (definitely not more than two). I mean, it was an ACTUAL graduation....not like those fake graduations from preschool or 6th grade or something ;) A real accomplishment. A real end of one thing, and a beginning of something new. It was a LONG ceremony, with a big graduating class (over 400). 47% of the graduates had attended the Papillion La Vista Community Schools from Kindergarten through graduation. For a military brat, that seemed pretty crazy to Cora. It started raining like crazy after the program, so we just ran to the car and went home to take pictures, where it was suddenly nice and sunny.

Cora also graduated from Seminary, which is a four-year religious education program. 4 years of getting up at 5:30 in the morning, because the class is before school at the church. Definitely another noteworthy accomplishment.

Okay, one more thing about graduation. The graduation party culture around here is ligit crazy, and I wonder if they know that it's not the same everywhere else in the country. Everyone has a graduation party here, and by everyone I mean EVERY ONE! And when I say party, I really mean more of a wedding reception type deal. Fancy invites are sent out. Parties are catered more often than not. Lots of decorations, all in the school colors, and big banners. The graduate stands by the front door to receive guests. They have hundreds of wallet size photos of the graduate, different poses, out on tables for the guests to take. They have displays up of the graduates achievements. And the parties aren't just for the graduates, they're for adults and families too - they invite hundreds of people. And because everyone is having a party, every weekend in the month of May is BOOKED, and so everyone goes party-hopping every weekend, all weekend. They're all open-house style, so nobody is expected to stay for the whole party. So you're literally just going from party, to party, to party, to party.....

At first, we were not planning on having a party, but everyone kept telling Cora she HAD to have a party, so we decided to have one later on in the month, after graduation. But then Cora started going to all these parties and realized how big of a deal they were, and we knew we couldn't have a party like those (because we hadn't planned or budgeted for something like that), and honestly we didn't want to. At first Cora was regretting that she had agreed to having a party at all, but we talked about how we are not from here, so why should her party have to look like everyone else's. It could be her own thing, and that was okay. We didn't have official invites, we just created a Facebook event. We didn't invite hundreds of people, but I think we invited less than 40, and about half of those came. We didn't have food, we just made some cookies. We didn't have the place decked out in school colors, but we put up a few party decorations that we already had and bought a couple of things at the dollar store. We didn't have photos for people to take, but I took a picture of Cora and a few of her friends. And we did put out some of Cora's things from her years in drama, as well as her mug collection (which are from all of our travels) which made for some additional fun decorations. And it wasn't so much a formal affair, but just Cora hanging out with her friends.

 

I am NOT dissing on the graduation party culture here, it's not good or bad to me, I just find it fascinating. This led to a really interesting discussion with my sister about local/regional traditions, like Field Days in Utah (NOT like field days in other parts of the states, just ask a friend from Utah) or Homecoming Mums in Texas (Google them, seriously). Everywhere we have lived as had something different. In a smaller sense, it's like experiencing different cultures traditions in different countries. Some you jump on board with and continue for as long as you live; some you participate in while you're there, but drop when you move away; and some you never get into for whatever reason. We will most likely be here for when Joseph graduates too, but I don't think we'll do anything different.

So yep, that all happened. And now Cora will be going to a community college here in Nebraska, and then she'll be going on a mission for our church next year. We're very proud of her, as always.

Uncle Howard

Joe's uncle Howard passed away in April. Joe's family lived on the same farm as Howard for about 5 years when Joe was younger (it was Joe's grandparent's farm before that), so he was close to Howard and has a lot of great memories of him. The kids and I had only met Howard ONE time, but that one time was enough to leave a lasting impression on us all, and we loved him dearly. I wrote a blog post (here) about our visit that we had with him. Joe and I, plus Madelyn and Alex, drove to Utah for the funeral (Cora couldn't go because of school, and Joseph stayed to keep her company). As is typical with funerals, it was a bitter sweet time. Tears, because we'll miss him, smiles and laughter, because of all the wonderful stories that were shared. I especially enjoyed when his son talked about what he always kept in his pockets. It was especially nice to see all of Joe's family (well, all of them that could make it).