Graduation

Well, it's taken me long enough to get around to posting about graduation that I considered not even worrying about it, but then I remembered what a glorious thing it was and decided it's still worth blogging about! 

Preston and I both graduated with our bachelors degrees on April 23 and 24.  It was just great!  I found out that the School of Family Life (Preston's school) had a separate convocation from the rest of the College of Family Home and Social Sciences (where my School of Social Work was).  Since Preston had to speak and all, I just decided to go to his graduation and walk there.  It was a good decision I think :)  It went pretty quick and it was fun because we were both involved in the convocation. Preston gave his valedictorian speech (which went REALLY well!) and I got to accompany a song that one of the faculty had written with a harp part that I arranged. I got a little help from my former teacher :)  Preston also got to be one of the singers in the song, so that was fun too!  I was so proud of Preston because he's so talented and does well in everything! His speech was amazing, as we all knew it would be.

We went to lunch with Preston's family before graduation and then we got to go to dinner with them after graduation too!  My family was there as well, but they had to get back up north after pictures so they didn't stay for dinner.  It was just an all around great day! I've been asked several times since then if I'm a student and for the first time in a really really really long time I have to say no! It's kinda crazy!  I'm so excited to have a year off though before going back to grad school ... assuming that will work out! 

Anyway, here's some pictures to enjoy! (My computer uploads picture backwards, so they're all in reverse order ... oh well, you probably can't really tell when they were taken anyway!)

Lots and Lots

So much to catch up on!

1) Capn' Crunch & the Berry-Tones (for now)

This is Preston's barbershop group's name ... for now ... I htink they have a goal of changing their name every time they perform or something. But, this one has lasted for 2 performances. Soon to be 3. Preston's still enjoying singing with his group. They're doing their own little show tonight. It will only be about 30 minutes to an hour because they just don't have that much material yet. But, at least they have fun! Here's some pictures of them from the competition in Vegas:

They were supposed to take a "funny" picture ... I guess Johnny's the only funnny one :)

2) More little Babies!

I got to go see Holly in the hospital the day after Charlie was born. Oh the power of Visiting Teachers. :)

visiting Holly was probably much more meaningful than when we offered to take her dinner 2 days later and ended up bringing her rolls, salad and $20 for whatever they wanted. We learned a very valuable lesson that day ... don't leave your pyrex pan on your car in the rain ... even to open the door ... there's a good chance it will slip right off and give the pavement a nice dinner. :) That's right, we were on our way to Holly's house with a chicken broccoli casserole that smelled amazing when it fell off the car and was pretty much not salvagable. I should have taken a picture of THAT!

3) GENERAL CONFERENCE

Preston and I have been lucky enought to go to at least one session every conference since we started dating and we didn't break our tradition now. We went to the Sunday morning session and it was a beautiful day! There were so many talks that I felt were written for me. So, it was overall a great expereince!

4) Not-so-little Sadie

Sadie still has the energy equal to 10 of me. She is a handful sometimes, but she's always so funny! Yesterday she enjoyed ripping up the plastic that my "Alumn Y" t-shirt was in. I had just pulled it out and left the plastic on the bed. Sadie started ripping it up when I sat down to look at the other graduation stuff I picked up yesterday. I just let her keep going because, let's be honest, there are much worse things she could spend her time ripping. She wasn't eating it, just tearing so I figured she wouldn't choke or anything. Anyway, once the plastic was just about as torn as I thought it could get, the whole bed was covered with little plastic pieces. When I started picking them up Sadie looked at me and then pounced on the plastic I was trying to get. This was quite the fun game for her. I looked at her after she pounced on some and we had a little stare down just before I threw the rest of the little pieces in the air so they rained down on her. That made her even more happy! We spent a good 20 or 30 minutes playing with the plastic and I was laughing so hard. Sadie is so silly and I just love her.

Sadie did something I never thought I'd see her do yesterday too ... she jumped in the tub by herself!! She is not the biggest fan of baths to say the least, but yesterday after Katie showered, I was getting ready to take a shower myself and Saide started sniffing the tub. I watched as she started licking the water from the edge and then hopped right in! She licked the floor of the tub a little and then I called Preston in so he could see. Right as he was getting there, she accidentally nocked over a small bottle of shampoo, which scared her nearly to death! She tried to jump out so fast that she fell right over in the wet, slippery tub and had to squirm her way out. What a traumatic ending. I hope she'll still do it again someday and discover that water and baths are not so bad!

Of course she has her share of bad behavior still too. On Easter Sunday we came home to a big mess. Not only had Sadie decided to have her "heavy duties" all over the hall (they can never be in one spot ... she likes to walk while she takes care of business), but apparently she had run all around the hall and tracked poopy prints all through the house. We cleaned the mess up as best we could, but ran out of carpet cleaner just before we got to the last one. We decided to buy a Spot Bot the next day for FHE and have a cleaning party as our activity, which just sounded like it would make everything better. The Spot Bot was "free" because we still had some gift cards to Bed, Bath and Beyond which made us even more happy! We used the Bot on the last spot that we hadn't had enough cleaner for the night before. I'll say this ... the Bot works great, but when your carpets are already black (like ours were when we moved in) it leaves one clean spot in the midst of dirty carpet. I'd say that's much more noticeable than a dirty spot on dirty carpet. It's pretty terrible :) Next step ... clean the carpet!

5) Concerts, concerts, concerts

Between Preston and I (mostly Preston) we've had performances every week for the past 7 weeks at least! I don't have pictures of everything, but I do have a couple from Preston's Men's Chorus concert a couple weeks ago. I was really bummed that I didn't take my camera to my harp concert! This is the only concert I don't have pictures of from the past 8 semesters that I've played! My mom took some, so I'll just have to get those.

On our way out, we passed this poster, which Steve and Mumsy thought would make a great picture :)

6) Liz's farewell!

Liz is now in the MTC. It's so crazy how life just keeps progressing. Just two years ago Liz, Ka and I were crazy college roomies. Now Liz is serving a mission, I'm graduating and Ka is a mommy! Wow. Anyway, it was way fun to see so many friends there!

7) EASTER

Liz's farewell was actually on Easter, so that was a part of it. It was fun to share a special day with both family and friends! Preston and I decided to decorate Easter eggs Saturday night just before 12:00pm. So, Preston ran to the store on our way home from his Men's Chorus concert and we stayed up late to get them all done. My family was having another egg race, and we didn't want to be the only ones who were unprepared. Anyway, we only made 6 eggs since it was late, but we had fun doing it! In the morning, Preston had hid our 6 little eggs and replaced them with candy in the basket that we had. I got to find all the eggs before we rushed out to make it to Liz's farewell. I rushed out so quickly that I left all the eggs! I didn't realize until we were in Salt Lake, so we figured we'd just end up being the unprepared ones for the race and not worry about it. After the farewell, we spent the afternoon with Preston's parents playing some boardgames. We then headed off to my grandparent's house for Easter dinner. It was pretty tastey! My mom's family is VERY social and spends way more time talking then they ever plan for, so we didn't end up getting out for the egg race until the sun was going down. We were happy that we weren't the only ones without eggs, but most people had brought their own. My mom brought some extras, but they weren't decorated or anything. we used some stickers to "decorate" them super fast. They were nowhere near as cute as the ones we made on Saturday! But, they still worked. Preston's egg came in 2nd or 3rd place out of about 20, so that was pretty good. I didn't do so great, but at least mine didn't break!

Lance decided to try something new this year in an attempt to win :) Golf clubs, it turns out, are not the best thing to hit an egg with if you want it to stay in one piece.

8) GRADUATION

Preston wrote his valedictorian speech over the weekend and he's taking his last final as I type. I finished my last one yesterday and had the most amazing feeling walking out of the testing center even though I didn't do as well as I hoped. It doesn't matter any more. I'm done! YAY! This is kind of a random picture from my last day of class in my Honors 202 class (history basically). It's pretty neat because Brother Duvall will bring old books from the Special Collections to every class and we get to pass them around to see. For the last class, he brought some kind of random stuff, but it was really cool. He brought a window pane with broken glass that is from Hitler's house in Germany, some other books, and an Emmy (or Grammy?) award. I can't even remember who it belonged to ... I had never heard of him :) but, I did get a picture holding the award! I can't wait to graduate! Tomorrow will be cool to hear from President Uchtdorf and Elder Nelson! Then Friday, Preston and I will have our ceremony at 2:00pm where he'll give his valedictorian speech and I get to accompany a musical number that I arranged a harp part for (with some help from my teacher!) and there will be a bunch of graduates singing, including Preston! It's a song that one of the faculty members wrote, which is pretty cool.

Whew ... are you still reading? I'm impressed if you made it all the way through this post in one sitting! It may as well be a novel!

More waiting

Unfortunately there was no good news from the phone call today. There just aren't enough spots. BUT, there's a good chance that there will be some more spots opening up in the next month. Basically, we plan on not working for CES and we hope and pray that plans will change. Just keep praying that something will open because apparently Preston's "right there."

The good news is that God is still in control and knows way more about life than I can pretend to be aware of.

2 days 2 go

After the 2 year process of Preston's seminary "application" we are now down to 2 days until we know the fate of our future.  Although we've spent a lot of time discussing what we'll do whether we get a job offer or not, I'm still a little nervous! Ok. . . a lot nervous! I'm still trying to convince myself to think as perfectly as Preston that it's a win-win situation.  Getting a job as a seminary teacher seams to be as much for me as for him at this point. That's the lifestyle that I want and I can't picture anything else!  But, I have seriously considered the alternative and I know that there's always something out there.  In the infamous words of myself "don't stress about the future when you don't even know what it is!"  It's pointless to even worry at this point because the decision is being made and we've done all we can do. And we've done it well! So, we're letting God lead us on and we'll find out where we're going on Friday!! Keep us in your prayers and check back Friday! We'll get a call either way, and I'm sure I'm going to post about it since that's all that's on my mind.  There's tons of pictures for me to upload, but i'm gonna have to get through Friday first! 

We had a great Easter with our families and friends (I'll post more about it after Friday)! Liz left on her mission today, and I'm sure excited for her! She's living a dream that I never got to! That's okay though, she'll be way better than I ever could be! Not that I don't have confidence in myself, but it just wouldn't compare to Liz. So, good luck Sister Gibbons! The people of Seattle don't know what they've got coming!

Update

Life is good! Preston had his last big observation today and I just got a text saying "Wow. It went so well today :)" YAY!! Well, at least we know that Preston's done well. Whatever happens, Heavenly Father's in control now. That's such a great feeling and a great knowledge to have!

Nothing Says "Nerd" Like Valedictorian

So . . . Preston got an email on Friday saying that he was on the top of the list for his graduating class in the School of Family Life and they'd like him to give a speech at graduation as the valedictorian!! Yay Preston!! The upsides, Preston's got a pretty good chance of getting into a good grad school and I get to swell with pride for my sweetie. The downside, nothing says nerd like valedictorian :) Also, I wonder if this means that I don't get to sit with him at graduation?? That would be a downside too. Either way, I will be happy to watch him give his speech and know that he may be a nerd, but at least he's MY nerd!!

PS - I love nerds!! ... apparently :)

There are more important things than blogging ....

I know, I know ... what could be more important than blogging?? In my life, what's NOT more important than blogging :) Anyway, sorry it's been a while.

First things first ...

I never posted the pictures from Valentines Day. I only have pictures of the cute breakfast that my most wonderful husband made me, but that was the best part anyway!

So, not only did he cut out all those letters and make me heart-shaped pancakes, but he also bought me a recipe book full of quick recipes! If you look closely, the recipe book has a yellow plate on the cover .... do you see it? So, we have that EXACT yellow plate in our cupboard!! Isn't that weird??

So ... the number 1 thing that's more important than bloggin is spending time with my one and only true love, Preston. (side note ... as I was just typing I spelled "Preston" wrong ... I just thought it was funny that my one and only true love was "Presotn" ... yeah ... I guess it's not really that funny any more.)

The next thing that's more important than blogging is my crazy little puppy. We just love her and she makes us laugh so much ... almost as much as she makes us cry :) hehe. Just jokin. Anyway, so Sadie's getting bigger and bigger, although I couldn't tell for a while. She still likes to chew things, but she's now moved onto the walls ... great! She chews the corners ALL THE TIME! I guess she really doesn't like her food if she likes wood that much. But, we did find this cool "bitter spray" to make animals not want to chew certain things.

This picture was actually taken a while ago ... she's gotten better about the whole book chewing thing. But, this is Preston's adolescent development book with no more index or glossary. :)

Sadie also really LOVES going outside and bugging our neighbors. She loves kids and other dogs, so anytime she can escape, she takes off to play. Sometimes we chase her around the neighborhood and sometimes we just give up and wait for her because she always comes back. The neighbor kids all seem to know her now and sometimes ask us to let her play, so that's a little comforting to us. But, since she loves outside so much, we started only taking her out on a leash during the day and letting her out late at night when neighbors can't be bothered. She seems okay with it and still loves to play out there. She usually finds a rock or stick that makes a great toy. Something about chewing those rocks is just so tempting to her (again ... is there something wrong with her food?). She likes to bring souvenirs in with her, usually a rock or stick. She did bring a pincone in the other day and decided to chew it in the best possible spot ... our bed! Pretty much we slept in pinecone crumbs. Of course, it's our own fault that we happened to not make the bed that day (we ALWAYS make the bed ... except that day).

So, I wasn't too worried about it when I heard Sadie crunching something when she came in on night last week until I saw feathers. Yes, I saw feathers because her souvenir of the day was a bird's skeleton! I don't know where she found it, but here it is:

The only thing I could tell myself is "at least it's not alive!" It just makes it a little less sad when the whole bird isn't there. BUT ...

This is what she brought back 2 nights later!!!!

Poor birdie ... :(

I do love my little Sadie pup. I just have to post about all the crazy things she does because those are the main things I take pictures of for some reason. But, here's a couple more normal ones that I have. She is the cutest cuddle pup when she's not hyper and she just lays in your lap or gives you kisses. She's been a great addition to our family!

The final things that are more important than blogging are school and friends. I don't really want to think about school any more than I have to (even though it is important and I enjoy it ... most of the time), but I have some great friends!! Last Friday was pretty fun. First of all, I got to teach the SFL 399 R class because my boss/the teacher was out of town. It was pretty cool. The lesson was about how to handle a bad day and I heard some pretty good "bad day" experiences. I only mention that because I have a few friends in that class, including Audra. Who happened to invite me to go to lunch with her and Heidi. She had these great coupons for a free sandwich at Arby's if you buy a drink. It was like a whole meal for less than $2! So good! Plus the company was great!! The car ride was pretty great too ... Audra's car struggles a little and almost died in several intersections. Always an adventure! Heidi and I thought it was pretty funny, but I'm sure Audra didn't like it so much. It was just great to catch up though! Thanks Audra and Heidi!

Pretty much I have the greatest life and am so blessed with a great husband, puppy, friends and education. And sometimes life gets in the way and I don't have a chance to blog. But, I'm not really going to do anything to change that because some things just ARE more important than blogging!