Celebrate Good Times

Karen hosted a joint family dinner in Andrew's honor this evening. She is so good at hosting dinners--I consider it good hostessing practice just to eat at their house! She had decorated the whole kitchen with a graduation theme, complete with confetti on the table.


Of course, there are quite a few graduations going on in the Heiss family this year--Andrew, of course, just finished his bachelors, Emily will be finishing high school in May, and Reid will be finishing his MPA in June--so the 2008 confetti pieces will be well used!

The 2008 Heiss Graduates

There were also little paper graduation caps hanging from the ceiling around the kitchen, which was fine until someone mentioned mistletoe. Emily got jealous of Andrew and me kissing all the time, so they all she decided to get in on the action.

Emily got slighted by Andrew

But David made up for it later (this was a stage kiss--no lips involved)

Karen made some delicious manicotti for dinner and I made a cake for dessert. In case you can't tell, the cookies are supposed to be mountains.

After dinner we let Rachel entertain us for a while. She's always willing to entertain. She was so talkative today and was very friendly. I think she learned today that if she smiles nicely while people are eating they will feed her. Throughout the day she sampled pineapple, brownies, cookies, cake, cucumbers, bananas, cheese, and other bits of goodies from everyone's plates.

Walk to Grandpa

Rachel with her assistants: Grandpa and Grandpa

We played a rousing game of Mexican Train after the table was cleared. Andrew was pretty confident that he was going to win, after scoring zero points on the first three rounds. On the fourth round he scored ninety-six points, putting him at about third place. Things just went downhill from there.


While we were playing, Jacob took this random picture of me. I figure since there are silly pictures of almost everyone else, it's only fair that I post one of myself. I have no idea what I'm doing in this picture. It looks like I'm fortune telling or am reciting something...a yogic phrase or poetry, perhaps.

There is a bifurcation in your future...

We had a wonderful evening, even if we had to call our Mexican Train game short (if Rachel is with us our evenings end around 8 PM). Thank you to our wonderful families for all their support while Andrew's been working on his degree! We couldn't have done it without you.