Senior Roast

This ward has a lovely tradition of honoring the graduating seniors each year during Mutual. It's called the Senior Roast because the parents have the opportunity to tell embarrassing stories about this child (roast her) while a slide show is being shown. (Thanks to Brother Hales for putting all the slide shows together. What a great job!)

Summer's Video

They also serve dinner and each senior has the opportunity to display items on a table that represent his or her life. The girls always display the quilts they made with the Relief Society's help earlier that month. (Mario thought the dinner was going to be a roast and was amazed to discover we were having taco salad instead =D!)

Although it was hard to come up with embarrassing stories about Summer (we should have called Alex!) we found a few. This is what we said:

Summer Sunshine

Naming children in our family is always something of an ordeal; we have so many rules
• We have to agree on the name
• It can’t already be “taken” by another family member
• Neither the name nor the initials can give rise to mean teasing
• It has to sound similar in both English and Spanish
• And (by the time we got to Summer) it had to start with an “S” and come alphabetically after Sabrina

We were on our way to the hospital the hot August day that Summer was born and had still not decided on a name. Mario was beginning to panic because he was heading to Mexico that afternoon and when I’m in labor I tend to be a little bit grouchy. Who knew what I would put on the birth certificate paperwork? When he suggested the name Summer it seemed to fit most of our criteria and it sounded pretty. Little did we know then how well it would suit her. From the moment she was born she became our little Summer Sunshine.

Being the youngest of four children isn’t always the easiest job in the world but Summer has handled it with grace and kindness. She has listened to her older brothers complain about how spoiled she is, has put up with old parents and for five years has basically been an only child at a time when family finances were directed elsewhere. She is not whiny or dramatic and is very easy to live with. Being the youngest also means you learn to sleep through anything. The year Summer turned 2 we drove to Palmyra and camped in a tent while visiting church sites in the area. One of the nights we were there, a huge storm blew up. It felt like a hurricane, although, admittedly, we were in a tent at the time. Mario and I each took a pole and Adam and Alex (12 and 8 at the time) took the other two poles. We fought to keep the tent upright while water poured through it like a river. Summer slept through the wind and thunder until her soggy sleeping bag finally woke her up. She sat up, looked around, then crawled up onto my sleeping bag that was sitting on a cot and went right back to sleep.

Summer did like to talk a lot more than the other kids. She always had plenty to say during family council, meal times and when she said her prayers. When she was too young to read she still insisted on taking her turn at scripture reading. It would go something like this, “And it came to pass that Nephi told his brothers to behave. And they got angry....” It didn’t matter if we were reading in Alma or Exodus or D&C—Nephi was her favorite. Her love for the scriptures has lasted all her life. She was always careful to make sure that, during mealtime prayers, the food got blessed. If she thought someone was going to forget to do it she would whisper loudly, “Bless the food!”

Summer has always been extremely determined. She taught herself how to read when she was four because I didn’t get around to it fast enough for her. She wanted to take piano lessons when she was six but our family rule was you had to be eight. That didn’t stop her. She pulled out Sabrina’s piano books and taught herself until she turned eight. By then she was halfway through the second level books. Even when it came to really hard things she showed her determination. Summer loved her pacifier; she could speak entire paragraphs without taking it out of her mouth. The New Year’s Eve that she was four, I talked to her about how we set goals for the new year—things we want to do differently. I suggested that maybe for the new year, she could stop using her tuggie. She thought about it for a few minutes, then handed me her tuggie and never asked for it or mentioned it again.

Mario was delighted when Summer was born because he finally had another night owl in the family. When Summer was in kindergarten, Mario started teaching physics at night at the local community college at the same time that Adam started Seminary. Me having to get up at 5:00 every morning for Seminary meant everyone (except Mario, of course, who wasn’t home yet) went to bed at 8:30. No one complained about this. Several months passed before I discovered that Summer would lay on her bed in the dark until she thought everyone was asleep. Then she would sneak downstairs and sit on the stairs in the dark until her dad came home. They would then have a wonderful time chatting about daddy’s class while he ate dinner. He even let her help him grade his papers.

Summer has loved school, music, church, sports, friends and more music. She first learned to sing while her sister played the piano; then she learned to play the piano and the violin. Last year she taught herself to play the ukulele as well. Our home has been blessed with lovely music her whole life.

You are our sunshine and we’ll miss you every day you’re gone but are thrilled you finally get to live the life you have deserved for so long.


Here are pictures of the other tables (Sorry, Amy! We didn't get a picture before you took yours down.)

Christina's Table

Ike's Table

Michael's Table

We're so proud of our seniors!