Senior Prom...and the story behind it

The pictures seem to say it all...gorgeous gal, handsome guy, many friends, huge limo. It's beautiful and perfect on the surface.

And yet, it is all the behind the scenes stuff that you don't see here that make such a lovely evening truly interesting :)

Like the fact the way that Nick asked Shell to prom. She got a call from him at 11pm one night, saying that she should go outside down the back road to our house. We peeked outside and could see lights down the way, so she bravely strode out in the darkness to check it out. He had spelled "PROM" on the road using many tealights, and was there holding a dozen roses for her.

So sweet. But after she said yes, he confessed that he now needed help getting his mother's car out of the ditch by the side of the road. He had parked it there so as not to be spotted (?--um, we live in the middle of nowhere--but anyway...) and, unfortunately, got it stuck. After Jeff unsuccessfully attempted to free it, we had to call AAA, and a couple hours later, he was on his way back home with a very muddy car to explain to his parents.

Or the fact that Shell and I hunted for her prom dress down on Portland's 23rd Street eclectic collection of shops and boutiques in hopes of finding a unique gown that wouldn't be on every other gal at the dance, and ended up finding the PERFECT dress for $21!!! It was enough to bring tears to my bargain-hunting eyes :)

And let's not leave out the fact that two of the other passengers in the limo for the evening were her best friend, Maria, and Maria's date for the evening, who was none other than Shell's ex-boyfriend and last year's prom date, Brek. This could have proved quite awkward since they haven't been super friendly since the break-up, but instead the two couples had a wonderful

time together.

Maria and Shell

There's also the day last week when Shell had decided not to go to prom because of too much stress involved in working out the timing of everything...Nick had two baseball games in Seattle (2 1/2 hours away) the same day. The final game did not even begin until 4pm, so in the first pics of the whole gang with the limo picking them up, she is dateless!

And all this does not even begin to cover the fact that her nails have zebra striped tips and that she had to look like this before evolving into the final picture of loveliness...



So, you see my point? Much more interesting once you know...the REST of the story. (my humble attempt to emulate one of my favorite radio personalities: Paul Harvey).