Where did the time go?

My daughter finished up high school this week, it's very hard to believe.! Wasn't it only a few days ago I was beaming of pride when the nurse at the hospital said she has rosebud lips! I'd never had a baby with rosebud lips before! Honestly it seems like the last 13 years flew by in a flash. I should actually say 12, she doubled her classes up this year and graduated a year early. She was done, had had it! As she put it. I've been feeling so emotional and nostalgic over the last few weeks. ( and quite honestly robbed of an extra year of high school)  Man, why didn't any of my friends give me some kind of warning how difficult all of this is??? I've mentioned it before but she is my last of 4 kids and the only girl. It will be very different with just the hubs and I wondering around this house, it's always been so full of people, noise... well just life I guess. I have a little while yet, she isn't leaving  just yet but, it is already eerily quite. (There were days I thought I'd never get this, of course now I think I prefer the noise!)

Whenever my kids graduate I fill their door up with pics of their life, there friends, their activities, their first day of school,  etc... it's a fun tradition in our house. This is Rachel's. 

This probably explains the nostalgia!

This is our front yard, and ever since she started preschool she has stood underneath that tree to take a picture of her first day of school. They both have grown so much!

See that picture on the far right? That's her with her brother, and her backpack over her head on her first day of 1st grade... under that tree. 

And this is her now! I am so proud of who she is. She is trying to figure out where she is going in life. She's feeling called to possibly be a missionary and I am working on letting that soak in. It's not what I had planned for her but maybe that wasn't part of my job anyway.  I do know this, whatever God has planned for her is far better than anything I could dream!

It only seemed appropriate for the theme for her graduation to be "Oh The Places You Will Go"  She's thinking Thailand is where she would like to serve. 

And I'm thinking... seriously? That's so far!

But this one, this one told me... "Mom, I'm not like your boys, I'm out of here!