Kendra's 18 now, well she's been 18 since July 28th but we weren't able to get everyone together then so we threw her a belated birthday party for when we could gather more family together.

Terry made his special baked chicken wings in three flavors: Honey BBQ, Hickory Smoke BBQ and Terriyaki. His wings are always a big hit and he managed to make 20lbs of them the morning of the party. We got Kendra a 1/2 a sheet cake for the occasion and Grandma Valladon made her maccaroni salad, which is unlike any other while Grandma Shelia made her pot of baked beans. We had a good sized spread with hamburgers, hotdogs and lots of ice water.

The day was nice and mild at Mills Park, with the only set back being the wind that picked up at the same time that we were ready to have the cake. All effort was made to light the candles but the wind kept blowing them out before Kendra got a chance to blow them out herself. In fact, I think that we weren't even able to get all the candles lit because the 1st half kept going out.

Grandma Shelia brought some large squirt bottles for the kids to have a water fight. The water fight didn't last long as the kids ended up squirting themselves instead. General running around and wrestling was had in the grass and over all it was a nice party lasting about five hours.

Here are some shots from the day:

~Laura

The end of June and start of July has been a good one this summer. The kids have gotten active in both the local Lego Club and the Carson City Library's Summer Reading Program.

The Lego Club is on the 3rd Saturday of each month at the library and the reading continues through August when they will have an ice cream party to wrap up. Right now the kids have completed 12 hours each of reading time and the main program; left is just reading for raffle tickets to be drawn in August.

Ciarra has completed the Junie B. Jones series and only has one book left to finish the Baby Mouse collection. Donovan has gotten into the An Awfully Beastly Business series and Captian Underpants. Both have started to get into the Warriors series that Kendra has started to read with them, she completed the series a few years ago. The following are some shots of both the Lego Club and the kids progress with the reading program.

~Laura

This week Ciarra, Donovan and I took part in the free Hoola Hoop class at Fuji Park. Terry picked up Cody and his dog Sophia to come along with us as it was Sage's last trip with us to the Fuji Dog Park. Sage was the last dog that Kendra was training for the Four Paws Four Vets program. She was an awesome dog and we will all miss her pressence very much. Here soon, I'll gather the pictures that we have collected of Sage's adventures with the family and have a post here just for her. Videos that we take are going to be placed on facebook as we don't have a video client for our blog. (We had Picasa but we filled up all our usable space)

Kendra and Cody let the dogs play while we hoola hooped. Terry took video of the events with his Andriod and I managed to capture some pictures of the evening. Here are some of the shots that were taken.

Well, she did it :) Kendra has graduated high school. Their ceremony was really disorganized and the school did a horrible job putting the event together and presenting it. The majority of the pictures we were able to take were after the procession. Terry did manage to get video of Kendra's walk on stage to get her dimploma, we have that online through facebook. The following are some of the images that we managed to get overall.

Kendra plans to go on and persue a career in veterinary medicine, while possibly serving in one of the branchs of the U.S. Millitary.

~Laura

The following are some candid shots of Kendra's last Change of Command with the CHS NJROTC. There are a lot of photos, many are large and include the whole company. If you are interested in seeing those, contact me at laura@thevalladonfamily.com and we will discuss the other images.

Winnie completed her training with Kendra and has been placed with a Vet. Because she is still working on her senior project that will be presented this month, Sage came to our home. Both have been awesome dogs :) Here are a few shots of Kendra and Sage.

This was Kendra's last year with the CHS NJROTC Naval Ball. She won an American Legion Award, as well as getting another Patriot Bond.The first set of photos are of Kendra and her boyfriend Cody before the ball. The second set is of Kendra and Daniel getting their awards.

This entry is a month over due but here we are :) Many of the pictures from his birthday were dark and action packed, therefore blurry. The following are some shots that we did manage to save.

I decided to do something a little different this year and make carrot cake cupcakes. They were a little crumbly. We also let Donovan and Ciarra frost the first patch. Kendra and I frosted the rest, she lit them and got to present the cupcakes.

~Laura

The Carson City School Board invited a select number of CHS students to come to their meeting. The students were there to tell the board a little about their senior projects and Kendra was one of those students who were invited to speak.

Since we got all our family games for Christmas, there have been a few game nights but last night was the first Sorry! night. We started out trying to play Risk but it was late and we just couldn't get into it.

Here are some shots of everyone playing Sorry!, I took the pictures and watched as all of the kids ganged up on Terry to make sure he didn't leave home. The tables turned though when Kendra annouced she was done with that and moved on to be 1st, followed by Terry coming in at 2nd, Donovan at 3rd and Ciarra at 4th.

More shots will come as I remeber to grab the camera. Some of the new games that we have already played but have no photos of are: Uno Mod, Scrabble, Chenga and Minutarous.