My “little” brother graduated high school today! I swear I JUST walked down this very same aisle with my BFF (who is now my maid of honour) Michele yesterday. I can’t believe it’s been five years!

Congrats Logan!

My “little” brother is off to Africa next week to spend a month building an orphanage and in the fall he is moving down to Kamloops for university (he’s living in the dorms, not with us) so we will get to see a lot more of him. I have to admit I’m pretty proud of him!

And, just for fun, here are a couple flashback photos to my graduation day exactly five years ago! I know I have way more photos than this but apparently they are not on my computer. Must find them!

While my high school experience wasn’t amazing it wasn’t horrible either. I had a good, solid group of friends and I remember having a lot of fun (maybe too much!) in Grade 12.

Eric and I also started dating halfway through my Grade 11 year and dated on-and-off throughout Grade 12 (getting back together for good around my grad if I remember correctly) so for that reason alone high school will always hold a special place in my heart!

Did you love or hate high school (or maybe you have no preference)? How many years has it been since you graduated from high school (you know, if you feel like sharing )?

You know what’s a really awkward topic sometimes? Money. You know what’s even more awkward sometimes? Being a young 20-something who actually has money. Eric and I do pretty well for ourselves. We have quite a bit of money in savings. Pay our credit cards almost in full every month and never miss a bill payment. We’ve also had help along the way.

Last night I was having dinner with some friends and they were talking about their student loan payments and how atrocious they are. I felt a little awkward because, well, I don’t have any student loans. I am incredibly lucky to have parents who put me through university so I wouldn’t have to bare the brunt of student loans for many years afterwards.

I know that very few people can call themselves this lucky and I am incredibly grateful to my parents for doing this for me. I also know a lot of people’s parents couldn’t do this for them, even if they wanted to. My parents could. It’s not like they broke the bank paying for my college tuition – they had the money to do it.

Anyways, sometimes I feel really awkward about this and I hate bringing it up. But when people wonder why I don’t have any student loans to pay it’s time to fess’ up and I must admit, it feels very spoiled-brat-ish to say “Oh, well, my parents paid for my schooling…”

So here I am, putting it out there to the world (or my blog readers. Ha!) and stating that my parents put me through college and no, I don’t have any student loans. I’ve hinted at it before, and maybe even mentioned it briefly once or twice, on the blog but I’ve never put it out there like this before because I’m always worried about the ‘spoiled-brat’ ‘wow must be nice’ kind of backlash I might get.

I should also add that my parents had absolutely NO influence over what I went to school for or where I went. They were wonderful in the fact that even though they backed me financially, I made my own decisions about where and what, and they respected that.

What’s a topic you feel awkward talking about?

After spending a week with us my mom left to drive home today. It was bawl-fest 2011 when she left. We are both usually criers but not that bad. I think it’s because Eric is usually there to hold us together more but today he was at work.

Anyways, I thought I would share a couple of house projects that my mom helped do while she was here the last week. I had so much fun having her visit. Despite me being sick at the beginning of the week we managed to fit wedding dress shopping, work clothes shopping, pedicure, massage, a trip to the Farmers Market and several house projects into our week!

First up, the patio and garden. I cannot take any credit on this. Eric and my mom did all of this (and it was A LOT of work) I am going to post some more about this with before and during photos next week.

Eric built that stone patio and those flower beds then my mom planted them! They currently have a mixture of vegetables and herbs and flowers in them!

Next was my photo collage inspired by Young House Love! My mom hung this for me when I was sick and I love the way it turned out. Can’t wait to fill out the rest of the frames.

No pictures of this but my mom also carpet cleaned our stairs and got a big, gross black stain out of them. Win!

This morning we went to the Farmers Market! I LOVE the Farmers Market and go almost every weekend in the summer. Since it’s only the 2nd weekend it’s open there were no vegetables yet. But I did get three loaves of freshly baked bread and just ate some delicious banana bread for lunch!

After the Farmers Market we went to Chapters and I got a big wedding binder and some books and convinced my mom to buy Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella in an audio book for her drive home. Then she left

It was really nice to have my mom visiting us and hanging out with her. The week went by so fast. Sometimes it really sucks living 1,000 km (600 miles) away from my family.

Do you live close or far away from your family?