4/25/08 GRADUATION ... Friday

We had a long weekend of Graduation activities. We were so excited to have my Dad & Mom & Tyra, also Scott & Jorine, It was great to go down this long path and have the support of our families. Friday started with an early morning, but of course, well worth it! John was one of the first to receive his diploma and get hooded. Tears came to my eyes when I saw that the Professor assisting with his hood was the one that we owe so much to! He has helped John get into grad school, get through grad school, and get out of grad school. Right after John walked, Micki got to walk after him. Good for her to walk with the Doctors! I'm so grateful BYU is so accomodating for her to be able to walk with her brother. It was a special moment! We had a dinner afterwards, thanks to all who came. It was great to be among our families for this special day. I have lots and lots of pictures, ENJOY!

Graduation Gifts

When John was young, he admired the ring his Dad got that his mother bought him when he graduated with his Doctorate Degree. His Dad told him that someday when he graduated with his Ph.D that he would buy him one too. He did not go back on his word! John picked out his ring and his parents bought it for him and his Dad threw it to him as he passed him in the Convocation line on Thursday. It was a lot of money, but will be worn proudly and forever!
















We had talked about buying John a new grill when he graduated and so last week we went and picked one out and it's gotten good use this last week. We feel like we're really living now that we have a house, a porch, and a grill! We'll love it more when the weather gets nicer and we can use it more.













I wanted to do something for John to commemorate the occasion, more than what our money could buy so I put a little scrapbook together that most of you reading this probably participated in-- and I thank you so much for that!! It is full of memories, stories, and notes of well-wishes from previous professors, classmates, friends, colleagues, and family. It was so much fun to make, I enjoyed reading all the notes that I received to add to it. Some made me laugh, some made me cry, most made me so proud of the person he is and person he has become. I was so excited to finish it and give it to him that I could hardly sleep. I did it on kind of short notice, but if I'd had any more time I would've had to tell him because I was so excited! These are a few pages from the book. I ended up with 10, thanks for all your replies!















John had mentioned that he would really love an hourglass, so my parents bought him a realy nice one from BYU. It has the BYU medallion on top and bottom and is beautiful and will look excellent in his office at work!

April 24, 2008: GRADUATION .. finally!!

Graduation was AMAZING! We've been working for 10 years toward finally being finished and this was the best finale we could've asked for. Graduation started on Thursday with Convocation where Elder Bednar spoke and did a wonderful job. All the speakers did a great job, they were very inspiring and did great at keeping with the spirit and it was not boring at all! There were over 6,000 students graduate and only 13 with their Ph.D. They really honored the Doctoral students and it made me so proud! It was awesome to have Micki (John's sister) graduate this year with John. I was glad to have Spencer there with me through both programs. I have LOTS of pictures, get ready!!

They had all the Ph.D students stand, John is on the front row, 4th from the left.

John's Dad is a BYU Professor and got to be a Line Marshall for the Convocation, it made it really special to have all of them dressed up in their robes.

John & I. Me being the PROUD wife!




















John & Micki -- she worked really hard and we're so proud of her! It was awesome to have her be able to walk at the same time as John.




















This is a picture of John's Doctoral hood. Pretty cool.




















Thursday was also Spencer's birthday, so we really splurged and ate at Tucano's. YUMMY!

Catching Up ...

I haven't posted for awhile, things have been kinda busy around here. Here are some pictures of lots of our goings on ...

Josie is my faithful American Idol watcher. She cheers after every performance!

Josie and Maggie are loving Sam, and he gives them lots of love in return.

A couple of weeks ago we woke up to mucho snow. It is starting to depress me when I see it. Winter is lasting WAY to long!!

Sam is getting so big! He is very curious and very frisky, but we love him to peices!

Missing Tucson...

This week I've spent a lot of time on my blog looking at pictures from last year. It's the closest thing to a journal that I have, and I've enjoyed going back to see what we were doing last year at this time. I woke up to snow again this morning, for the third time this week, and it got me thinking about how it would be right now in Tucson. I am so grateful for the time we had there, and that we truly enjoyed our time there. The culture change was a shock for us, we embraced the weather, we depended on our dear friends, and now I miss it like I never thought I would. Daily I would drive by the hills covored in saguaros, it has it's own kind of desert beauty. So, this post is dedicated to the things I miss about Tucson right now.

Obsessed?

Just to go along with my other post, this is for all my fellow fans-- I found this today and thought I'd share. CHECK IT OUT!!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8q3l6L1ZDA

My heart is a flutter ...

Look here to know why:
http://amhphotography.typepad.com/photos/kalama/index.html

Curious George

More like Curious Josie, or maybe I should say Destructive Josie? So John was in the bathroom tonight and Josie wanted in (the door was locked) and who knows how the wheels in her head turn, but she found a "quippie" (clippie), and WA-LAA, in she goes! Where does she come from ??????????????

Welcome Sam!

We are expecting the PARENTS OF THE YEAR award this week (I'm sure we'll do something by next week to have screwed it up)! We have finally made all our kids' dreams come true! Okay, just one of them. We surprised them yesterday with a KITTEN!! We've been looking since before Easter and yesterday we found the perfect new addition to our family. He is 8 weeks old and we are naming him Sam. He is definitely getting all the attention he needs from our over-excited two year old. I wish I had a video of her this morning when she saw him after she woke up-- classic! I'm sure his favorite time of day is when she's asleep. We are really excited and hope that he'll live longer than a year. We got him straight from his mother, so there shouldn't be any weird cat diseases this time.

Let the Hunt Begin!

Just as we'd finished eating our last peice of Easter candy, we were lucky enough to have our supply reloaded! We had our egg hunt at G & G Livingstone's on Saturday. It was awesome to have it a week later, just as we were longing for more of the goodness that Easter brings. All Maggie wanted was the "silver" egg (it contained $$). She didn't even care about the candy, she knew just what she was looking for. With a little help and prompting, she found it! It was a windy day, we're anxiously waiting for Mr. Sun to please shine down on us! Thanks G & G for all the YUMMY treats, too bad we couldn't do it every week-- our supply has once again ran out!