Emily's Seminary Graduation!

Sunday, June 1st was a major milestone in my life. Emily is my fourth and youngest and she graduated from Seminary. Not only am I done with Seminary with all my children, but they all graduated from Seminary, so this was a very happy day for me. I really felt the sacrifice of 13 years of seminary. Most of those years the girls got themselves up and drove themselves the 17 miles to town at 5:30 AM for a 6:00 to 7:00 class and then drove the 17 miles back out to the valley for school. For Emily's Sophomore year she didn't have a license, just a permit, so I had to get up and "ride" with her and stay there till she was done....this lasted for almost 7 months! I was glad when she was on her own, but then she started working and just couldn't get herself up on her own, so her whole senior year and part of her junior year I have gotten up about 4:45 and struggled to get her awake and going. There were times it seemed like this was going to be an eternal sacrifice! The highway in is a very curvy 2-lane highway. In the fall and winter you have to watch for deer as they are often on the road (or skunks, racoons, dogs, cats, etc). It's usually foggy and when other headlights are coming at you it's quite stressful. Even letting the girls drive off alone took alot of courage and faith. We had to watch the weather to make sure they didn't drive in icy conditions. Rain was often treacherous when you get a lot of water on the road with a not-so-experienced driver. All but my oldest daughter had at least one to two years of driving in all by themselves. One daughter fell asleep at the wheel and woke up in the other lane of traffic--fortunately no one was coming. I have no doubt that the Lord blessed them with safety to be able to make it to seminary these many years. I'm so grateful that the tail end of Seminary came as the gas crisis is getting worse. We were also very blessed for them to have the same Seminary teacher all these years and I owe a great tribute and honor to her, Martha Johnson. I made her a bookmark with lettered beads "STF" meaning "Seminary Teacher Forever"...even if she is ever released she will always be STF to our family.Emily and 3 of the other kids she graduated with from our ward. One family slipped out before we could grab their son for pictures so there was actually 5 from our ward. (pretty sizeable compared to years past!) Two of them are twins...can you tell which ones?
We were commenting over how the boys towered over the girls so they made a roof over their heads.
Emily and Sister Johnson
Emily with mom and dad. (Dad trying to show off the graduation certificate)
PS The twins are the girl in the blue dress and the boy in the dark suit.