Celebrations

Last weekend was full of celebrations. First, there was a party on Saturday afternoon to celebrate Destiny's graduation from high school! Hurrah! We met at a park district party space in Hoffman Estates to get some grub, give Destiny 1,000,000 high fives, and celebrate with the Napier/Power clan.

But we had to scoot out quickly to hop to another celebration, the Bharathanatya Arangetram of my friend's daughter. The Arangetram is a sort of graduation recital to signify the end of a period of Indian dance study, so after a decade of work, the fifteen-year-old Anita below put on a three hour recital that was absolutely fantastic.

It's not a great picture but it should give you a sense of Anita's fantastic costume and meticulous dance style

After the recital we got to eat dinner, and Trevor and I were in heaven because everything on the menu was vegetarian!

Another mediocre picture, but you can see the recital program in the background

Better picture, taken by Trevor (obviously)

We left and got home that night, our bellies full of delicious Indian food and our minds full of happy thoughts about Destiny and Anita, two young ladies bound for success.

But it wasn't over with Destiny, because as part of her graduation gift, we treated her to a back-to-school shopping spree (with just me, not Trevor; that would not have been fun for him at all). So Dest and I headed to State Street on Sunday afternoon for some shopping.

Shoes!

Clothes!

Shopping Queens

 And now this weekend we're heading up to Door County for four days of vacation with the Power peeps and to celebrate Grandpa Madel's 90th birthday. I'm sure we will have an account of it once we return. Until then, happy August!