somehow, my little sister kate graduated from high school yesterday. today, she turns eighteen! but for some reason i still think of her like a five year old. i guess that's what happens when you're the baby. since we're missing out on all the festivities and i'm not there in person to ramble (which i know my family is dying without) behold: a post all about kate.
kate is the only sibling who i remember being excited for. i was six, and before she came home i practiced the house tour i would give to her to introduce her to everything. specifically, all of jess's stuff that i wasn't allowed to touch and lara's ballerina music box. i was also determined to teach her to talk right away so she could tell me all about heaven before she forgot. but she was stubborn. i even tried the blink once for yes, twice for no idea. it didn't work out so well. mostly i was curious about unicorns i think. and if you got to eat ice cream.
kate used to be terrified of the wind. she would camp out in the basement for hours if it looked like a storm was coming. the other thing that drove her crazy (like full meltdown) was if our back gate was ever open. and with six older brothers and sisters i think we might have left it open on purpose once or twice...
she's always been super sweet and friendly. we went on a church history tour and she was five-ish. by the end of every tour she was up front with the guide, holding their hand and best friends. pretty sure we scored extra nauvoo bricks because of kate.
kate's never been afraid to be her own person. everyone else in the family played sports. steve, jess, and jeff played basketball. jenny, lara and i played soccer together. naturally my parents thought kate might be into soccer too. the rest of us were pretty competitive and played club/high school sports forever. kate was the opposite. she was the girl always waving at the sidelines, picking dandelions when she was playing defense, and skipping in circles with her teammate if they scored a goal. it was awesome. she's genuinely happy when other people are happy (even if it was the other team).
she's really smart. she was sort of mortified when we found out that she was academic girl of the year in ninth grade. she didn't want anybody to know. this year, she shocked us all when she was in the homecoming pageant as deca president. she was beautiful and funny and the whole time i watched her up on stage i couldn't believe it was my little sister. she does so many things that i would never have the courage to do.
it's funny that kate is the youngest, because she might be the most mature out of all of us kids and such a good example to all of us. it seems like she gets the short end of the stick a lot, but you would never know it from her attitude. she's going to uvu on a full scholarship this fall to be an asl interpreter. she's going to be amazing.
happy birthday/graduation katers!
