CALARTS just made this the luckiest friday the 13th EVER!!!

as of today, we will no longer associate friday the 13th with anything bad.
kim and i are absolutely busting with pride because today our daughter april received a brightly colored letter in the mail.
no, it wasn't from willy wonka. it was from a place april has been dreaming about since she was a tadpole.
let's go back a bit shall we. (insert dream waves here)
from the time april was just a cute little girl she saw the world with animator eyes.
here's how she pictured us.

when she was about 6 years old she drew her first animated character, andy bug.
she drew this little guy everywhere... for years. she even added andy bug to her ultimate collection of pokemon champions. I CHOOSE YOU PIKACHU!
seriously, from the time this little guy popped into april's imagination drawing was her passion. she never stopped drawing. ever.
when she was 9 she drew an entire comic book game based on the trials and tribulations of andy bug and his numerous variations (air bug, regular bug, water bug, winter bug, and my personal favorite, mystery bug).
we still have the book and nearly die laughing every time we look through it. it's awesome. especially the page april censored because andy suffered too grim a fate at the hands of the dreaded king chompper. (yes, she spelled it with 2 p's. april's caption on that page reads, "sorry, under the cercemstances we are not allowed to show this scene." isn't she precious.

as april grew a little older we put a camera in her hands. from day one she took some amazing photos, and she still does today.
this portrait of her, however, is slightly less than amazing. in fact, it kinda creeps me out.

with practice comes improvement. over the years we have watched april's drawings get better and better. our whole family LOVES disney and pixar. while we watch in amazement at their animated characters, april puts pen to paper, or in this case paint brush to grocery bag, to recreate her favorite scenes.

there is nothing better than gifts that come from the heart. april has presented kim and i with some of the most incredible gifts from hers. we absolutely love all of april's art, but it's drawings like this one that mean the most to us.

for the past few years april has been polishing her artistic skills at the college level. we give her endless ribbing about her "noodz" but the life drawing classes she's taken really helped her get to where she is today.
today! that's what i started talking about before i sidetracked myself.
today is the proudest kim and i have ever been of april...

because of this brightly colored piece of paper.

today april received her acceptance letter into CALARTS.

congratulations april. you won!
all those years carrying a sketch book with you everywhere you went finally paid off.
you have made rain, mom, and i extremely proud. we couldn't be happier for you. we can't wait to see what the next few years hold for you. you are going to see and do so many amazing things. this is such an exciting time in your life and ours.
just so everyone knows what an incredible accomplishment this is, CALARTS only accepts about 8-10% of applicants. the average class size there is about 12 students. so, out of thousands of applicants, they thought april had something pretty special. we think so too.

april, as you get ready to head out on your own path, never forget that mom and i will be there for you through all life's challenges. even though you'll be 3 hours away from home, you'll never be alone. we will always do everything in our power to support you. we're so happy that you achieved this goal and we can't wait to see you graduate and be super successful.

as an added bonus, rain's softball team (the maroon monkeys) CRUSHED their opponents tonight (team wicked)!

to quote april from earlier today...
this was the best friday the 13th EVER!!!