Graduation Day!

This week my little sister, Jennifer Caroline, graduated from high school! I sure love that girl!

Dear Jenn-Jenn,
I have this vivid memory from the summer before you were born when I was eleven-years-old. You know how I get excited and amped up about different things and I remember so clearly having this thought process run through my mind. I was in the shower after a soccer practice and I remember thinking,
“Wow, I have so many things to be excited about! This Saturday I get to play in my soccer game, next month I get to perform in the homeschool group play, and then in October the baby is going to be born and then I’ll have something to look forward to and be excited about for the rest of my life!”

That sounds a bit over the top and ridiculous, like me, but in my little eleven-year-old mind, you were going to be something, someone, to be excited about forever and always! And you know what? I was right! I was right.
You have been, and will continue to be, one of the biggest joys of my life. I was so excited to hold you for the first time, excited to show you off to my friends, excited to make you do your “tricks,” excited to plan your birthday parties, excited to hear what precocious thing you would say next, excited to tell “Jenn stories” to the cousins, excited to coach your soccer team, excited to take you to Disneyland for the first time, excited to be your stage mom, excited to do the Jane Austen unit with you, excited to go to your back-to-school nights, excited to go to NYC with you…you have literally provided me with endless things to look forward to and be excited about. I have thought time and time again over the last seventeen years, “What on earth was going on in life before Jenn was born? Were we board out of our minds?” I think you know that our family has never once been board out of our minds, but you sure make our family a whole lot more exciting, funny, and entertaining!

I consider it one of the hugest blessings of my life that I’ve had the privilege of living close to you for most of your growing up years and I feel especially blessed to have gotten to be a part of your highschool experience. I love that you ask me to coach you before each audition. I love that I get to be your personal hair stylist for each show! I love getting to me your Mom on back-to-school nights. I love that I get to chaperone dtasc (sp?). I love that you want me to read your papers. I don’t particularly love studying for chem or chapter title battles with you, but if we can do it at TIFA it’s so much better and I do love that I live close enough to be there when you need to study!

There are so many things about you and me that are complete opposites, but maybe that's why we get along so well! Despite the fact that you don’t like inspirational sports movies and that I’m not all that keen on Benedict Cumberbatch, we are most definitely kindred spirits!
As you graduate today, I’m so proud of you and words could never describe how much I love you, Jenn-Jenn the pumpkin girl!
Love, “Beff”