Birthday & Graduation

Well, for my birthday my boss always gives me a paid day off. So I got to spend the whole day with Brian, because he had just finished his semester the day before. So we actually spent the day clearing out his desk. It was like he was moving in to our apartment finally. He had so much stuff that it filled the entire living room. Granted, it's not a huge living room, but still. That's a lot of stuff!!

Then he took me to the mall and I got a Mani/pedi which was nice. Then we went out to dinner, and went over to his parents house for cake and ice cream. It was a pretty good day.

May 2nd I graduated! Well, almost. It was the ceremony anyway.

It was really nice to have so many family members there to support me.

Me & Brian

Me & My Parents

Me & My sister Natalie. She & Adam came all the way from St. George.

Me & My Grandpa & Grandma Walker

Brian & I with his parents

Brian & I with his Grandpa & Grandma Merrell

The Ceremony was about two hours long, but it went by pretty quickly, especially considering that they had over 1,000 names to get through. (College of Humanities, pretty much where they group all the misfit majors that don't fit into another category.) That was probably the shortest part compared to speakers and things. I was in the very front, so I was probably the 10th person called. I waved to my family before they called my name, but then I was focusing so hard on not falling down that I didn't even hear them scream for me. My mom assured me that they did though. She also admitted to crying during the ceremony. That's my mom! I would be more concerned if she didn't cry.

It was an awesome feeling to walk across there. I know I still have 3 months left, but still. I was so happy to have reached this point. There were a couple of my professors there that congratulated me afterwards as well, which I thought was pretty cool.

After the ceremony, my grandpa took some of us out to lunch at Chuck-a-Rama. I ate so many scones with honey butter. It was so yummy!

I went home and took a nap because the only downside of the whole weekend was that I got sick. I started not feeling well on my birthday and it just got worse as the weekend progressed. But I kept popping DayQuil and that helped a little.

That night we went out to dinner with my family to Red Robin. Then we went & watched the Jazz game I think. I can't remember.

Saturday was my brother Brad's Eagle Court of Honor. I'll post more about that later.

Sunday we had my monthly family dinner at my parent's house, which was extra fun this time because all the kids were there because Nat & Adam had come up from St. George for all the festivities. I love getting together with everyone like that.

I got gifts from family for graduating this year, and it was very generous of everyone. Thank you! But the one gift from my parents was really cool. My dad dropped out of college when he was younger because he had a good job and they were just married. He came to regret that later on, but he worked hard and he graduated when he was 43. Because of his experience he feels that it is EXTREMELY important to graduate from college. So my parents wanted to show this by the gift they are willing to give when their children graduate. We didn't know what this meant because I am the first. This is what my parents gave me:

We are so proud of you upon your graduation from the University of Utah.

Choose one of the following for your graduation gift:

A trip to Disneyland! (Round trip tickets for 2, tickets to the park and accommodations).

A laptop computer.

$800 work wardrobe shopping spree.

I was totally shocked. That was so amazing. It took me a long time to decide because all those things are so great. I finally decided to get a new laptop. I've been wanting one of my own because as soon as the summer's over Brian will take his computer back to school and I won't have one, at the time when I'll finally have time to write & do my scrapbooking. And we talked about getting me one, but I know I'll never spend that money on myself when we have loans to be paid off and things like that. So this will be good. I'm way excited.

It's definitely worth it to graduate, and not even because of the gifts. It's just a good feeling knowing that I've accomplished this and I can be proud of myself that I made it through, even with all the trials.