Less than a month away...

It's almost that time of year again--when our Alexandra will fly off to Nicaragua for her 3rd mission trip. She is already excited. But before THAT adventure there is another milestone to mark and now it is less than 1 month away--her high school graduation! I have been looking through pictures lately--gathering just 100 to go into a video montage my sister gives as a graduation gift to her nieces and nephews. Just 100 pictures from the last almost 18 years of this child's life.  So looking at these moments--catching these glimpses of our "alpha baby",

our "pumpkin pie"(our favorite nicknames),

our "Xandra" (Rebecca's name for her big sister)

--it is almost too much for me. How can it be? She is so grown up now--dinner conversations are about her perspective on everything from world affairs to U.S. government to the kids she babysits to how she's just not quite sure she's ready to leave this house she's always lived in, this sister who's her best friend, these parents she needs to talk with everyday (yes--she did say that)! The time is coming...but for now I will "be in the moment"--the famous advice I have always given her. This precious moment...