Olevia's Graduation

After we got home from celebrating Spencer's Law School graduation, we had to a week to recuperate and then we had Liv's High School graduation.

She wanted a white dress for graduation, and I got the honor of making it for her! She accessorized with gold jewelry and shoes and wanted something different for her hair, she had a few pictures and we combined different aspects of each and this is what we came up with:

Liv in her dress!

The "hair" bow!

A few family members and close friends came in and we went to dinner in Tyler and then headed to her graduation.

Matt and I at dinner.

After dinner, we headed to The Brook Hill School in Bullard for graduation. It was such a sweet time!

Our Graduate!

Here are a few photos from after:

**Quick story: SoSo is from Nigeria and boarded at The Brook Hill School while attending there. On the weekends, for probably the last  6 months she would come and stay at the Chaffin's and also spent Holiday's. So, she is practically family now! **

Liv and SoSo

The Chaffin Clan (Spencer was there in spirit)!

Olevia plans to attend TJC in the fall and hopes to transfer to Florida after two years, or possibly Texas State. Matt and I are so proud of her and all of her accomplishments, and also proud she is following both of our footsteps and becoming an Apache! She was also offered a job yesterday as a lifeguard on campus! This is one proud sister-in-law (I was a lifeguard too), I know she will go far in life and we are blessed to see her through every step of the way! =)

Also an update since I am so late posting this: Liv took me to dinner last night as a Thank You for helping her get ready for graduation, etc. We had a girls night at Lago Del Pino in Tyler, and had a blast!

Girls Night Out!

Oklahoma - Spencer's Graduation

So our Road Trip vacation ending in Oklahoma City for Spencer's graduation from OCU School of Law. We arrived Wednesday night and just chilled and then went to bed. Thursday morning we woke up and had Krispy Kreme donuts for breakfast, yummy! Then ran some errands, met with various people and checked out the venue for the party Saturday night. It was a fun day...which ended with a baseball game! Sam and Jake, Matt's little cousins play for the bears (a.k.a: The Bad News Bears) and we had to go watch the game while we were in town.

Jake

Sam

We had a blast watching these guys! We then had dinner with their family and went back to Spencer's and crashed. Friday we had more errands to run and things to pick up for Saturday, we did that and then Matt and I went to the movies. After the movies, Spencer had an awards ceremony at his school and we all attended.

The fam with Spencer & his friend Vu.

After the awards ceremony, Spencer & Kensie went to a dinner/reception for the recipients and the rest of the Chaffin gang along with Nanny and GrandBob went to The Cheesecake Factory. After our yummy dinner, we went back to Spencer's and again crashed. Saturday came and was party day! We set up the venue and did a little decorating and then came back and celebrated that evening!

Liv and I

Kensie and I

The AWESOME cupcakes! We decorated each table with the Law Books, Gavel and Personalized M&M's.

I apologize I didn't take many pictures, but you get the idea! It was top notch and the food was great, but the best part was the fellowship!

The next day, Mother's Day, was also Graduation Day! We all met for the ceremony and it was so special!

All the family that attended.

So proud of you Spencer!

Silly Boys!

Proud Parents!

After graduation, we all went our ways and headed back home. I was so excited to see this sign:

We are so very blessed, and had an amazing time on vacation, celebrating Spencer's Graduation and seeing family! This concludes my vacation segment of blogging and tomorrow I'll share with you Olevia's graduation, which was the next weekend.

Graceland

So on Day 4 of our Great Adventure, we woke up in Nashville and had breakfast at the hotel. Our plans were to go skeet shooting, yes we packed our shotguns, but the place didn't open until 10 and we really didn't want to just wait around until then. So, we got on the road and headed to Memphis. You can't be that close and not go check out Graceland, right? So we did.

First, we took a tour of the house:

Living Room

I believe this was his mother's room.

Kitchen

Shooting Room.

Lounge outside of Racquetball Court

My abstract photography

Then we toured the automobile museum:

Then, we toured the airplanes..it was interesting, but because of no flash, every picture I took had a glare, but I'll share this one with you:

Us in Elvis' mirror on his plane.

And of course the gift shop:

Matt and I with our Elvis shades.

It was fun going and seeing Graceland, it wasn't one of our favorite things of the vacation, but you have to go and see. So we saw and now it's checked off the list!

We tried to find something to do in Arkansas on the way to Oklahoma but everything we came up with didn't pan out, so we just drove on through to Oklahoma City and arrived at Spencer's house around 10:00 p.m. So we visited with him and ma'am and then crashed. The next day started the preparing for graduation festivities and also the Bourland Boy's baseball game. I'll share all about our Oklahoma weekend next week! Now, I'm off to Arkansas for the weekend with family and friends. I share about that next week too! Everyone have an amazing Memorial Day weekend!

A trip through Tennessee!

Ok, so from yesterday we had driven to Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg, Tennessee and stayed the night at another KOA. We woke up Tuesday morning, our anniversary (the best first 2 years of Happily Ever After), and headed down the road to the Pancake Pantry for breakfast. There were so many options, and it was yummy!

I had Swedish Pancakes and Matt had hash browns stacked with ham, onions, peppers and eggs, with a side of pancakes.

After breakfast, we walked down the streets of Gatlinburg and headed for Ober Gatlinburg, to ride the big sky car to the top of the mountain. To me this was a really fun thing, the views were amazing, and Mattie was a trooper! =)

Starting up the mountain.

You can see why they are called the "Smoky Mountains".

Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

Once we got to the top, we wanted to ride the slide down part of the mountain, so we got on a ski lift and went further up the mountain, in order to slide down.

We started here and went a little over half way up to get on the slide.

On a chair lift, you have to have a picture of your feet! =)

CHEESE!

Of course I had my camera out to take pictures as I raced down the slide, but I was told that wasn't allowed and had to put it away for my safety. Ha! Matt won the race, but he was a gentleman and slowed down to wait on me (I really think my cart was defective)! But it was fun!

Here is a picture of the slide we went down, the two white lanes on the right.

More of the slide.

After our slide, we rode back down the mountain on the sky car and loaded up and headed out of town. We were Nashville bound for an exciting night! We checked into the Country Inn & Suites that night (needed a break from the tent), showered and cleaned up and headed downtown for dinner at DeMo's Steak and Spaghetti. We enjoyed our steak and spaghetti (and yes, spaghetti was the main side dish, you could trade it for a potato, but only if you asked).

Our Yummy dinner!

From dinner we headed to the one and only: GRAND 'OLE OPRY!!!

Happy Anniversary!

I was so excited...I couldn't stop smiling!

That was an experience I think everyone who loves Country Music should do! It was an amazing line up also!

Chris Young

Jimmy Wayne

Little Big Town

Thompson Square

Alan Jackson

 I apologize for the picture quality...they definitely don't do it justice. I had a blasty blast...this was one of the highlights of the trip for me!

Once we left there, we went back to the hotel and crashed...sleeping in a bed was a nice little treat! =) Stay tuned for tomorrows post about "the King", I'll share with you our experience at Graceland and the rest of our trip, ending at Little Goofy's Fun Shack (a.k.a. Spencer's House) in Oklahoma City!