Graduation!

Always playing catch up on this blog! And now I need to come up with a new name for it since we have left Indiana. But before I get ahead of myself, let's back up to April...

Easter Sunday. I had the weekend off from work so I could enjoy General Conference with Wes. We really enjoyed all of the sessions and I know I had my questions and prayers answered. Love it! It is always special when Conference and Easter Sunday fall on the same weekend. We had Baley and Ryan and their daughter Riley over for dinner. It was a simple traditional Easter with ham and eggs and rolls and lots of other yummy stuff! We love sharing holiday meals with our friends!

We got to participate in the annual Law Review banquet again this year. Even though I don't know most of what's going on in the conversations with a bunch of future lawyers, I really enjoy this night for a few reasons. It's a great way to get out of work early, first and foremost ;) but I also get to dress up and have more of a fancy date night with Wes. I also enjoy seeing Wes' classmates and catching up with them. The law review was also kind enough to honor Wes and I and one other couple that is also expecting and sent us home with a small gift. I like being pregnant :)

I can't remember if anything else significant happened in April. It seems so long ago! I do remember we had different stake conferences and things and I was practicing like crazy to accompany the stake choir one last time. But that is all that's coming to mind besides the usual school for Wes (counting down the days) and work for me. I suppose we also started making more arrangements for graduation moving back to Utah.

Baley threw a baby shower for me the first Saturday in May. It was so much fun! She had great food and fun activities. It was great to catch up with friends and of course oooh and aww over the adorable baby clothes and accessories. I am so excited for this little boy! And I am so grateful for her friendship!

Ever since that weekend, things kicked into overdrive and it seems we have been going non-stop! Wes finished up classes and started his finals preparation. I started cleaning our apartment and organizing things to make it easier for the big move. We still managed to watch a lot of Revenge, our latest Netflix obsession, during all of the craziness. I finished work on the 8th. I was a little sad to leave - mainly saying goodbye to my friends that I have made there. I won't miss the daily grind, but I will miss staying busy in that way. I'm excited to adjust to my new pace of life once baby comes! A few tears did leak out as I made the walk to my car one last time after I turned in my badge. It wasn't sadness that made me cry but more of a feeling of extreme gratitude. I have been so blessed! This job was exactly what I needed the last two years and I just felt so lucky as I drove home that everything in South Bend had worked out so well.

The 8th was also Wes' last final!! We didn't celebrate much since all week I had been coming down with a cold and we had the next phase of moving to work on. Being sick, and pregnant, definitely slowed me down and I stayed home from church on Mother's Day. Thankfully I recovered fairly quickly for the big week ahead. We started packing all of the stuff the movers wouldn't on Tuesday and Wednesday. Wes and I make a good team. I pulled everything out of the closets and cupboards to be packed and Wes put everything into the boxes. The only things we didn't pack were the items we would need over the next few days and the breakables. This meant our house was a mess of boxes and cleaning supplies until the movers would get there Friday to take it all away.

We took a break from packing on Tuesday night to go out. One of Wes' professors had invited us and another couple - a fellow classmate and friend of Wes' and her husband - to dinner. This was a lot of fun to meet him and have a night out. I know Wes has had some excellent professors and has enjoyed his experience at the law school tremendously.

Thursday was the day I was looking forward to because that's when our families arrived!! This was the first, and last, time my parents would be in South Bend with us. It was so good to have them there! Steve and Rachel also came which was a lot of fun. Wesley's parents, Grandma, and Aunt and Uncle also came to support us which was wonderful. We have the BEST family in the world, and we have certainly felt the love and support of everyone back home while we have been gone the last three years. We could not have done this without you!

Friday. Moving day for our stuff. Thankfully the firm was taking care of this for us and it felt so nice to watch the rest of our things packed up and loaded onto the moving truck. I felt much less anxious with an empty apartment compared to the boxed up one. All we had now was our suitcase and air mattresses that we would sleep on the next few days - Wes' parents were staying with us. Not ideal sleeping arrangements, but it worked.

Wes had an awards ceremony to attend that afternoon where he received multiple awards for being on the Deans list and receiving the Deans award in several of his classes (Deans list is 3.6 or better GPA for at least a semester and the Deans award goes to the top student in each class each semester). This was a small event as far as space went so only his parents and I attended. We then met up with the rest of the group to tour campus. It was a beautiful day! It was fun to show my parents especially where we've lived and how we've spent our time here - they were the only ones, along with Rachel, that hadn't been out before. I think it was also fun for my dad to be back in Indiana after 40 years since serving his mission there. That evening we just relaxed for a bit and spent time together.

Saturday. The big day! Funny but stressful story first: So on Friday I picked up Wesley's graduation robe and everything from the bookstore. We pulled it out to let it hang so it wasn't wrinkled for the next day. It wasn't until 10 pm that night I got looking at the carbon copy of the order form he had filled out and he had put his height as 5'1''. Wes is most definitely not 5'1''. So either the pen stopped working or he made a mistake so I called him into the bedroom and had him put the robe on. It was an XS!! The sleeves only came down to his elbows and the hem barely hit his knees if that. He looked ridiculous. Wes is not a very vain person, but he does care about the important things. This was certainly one of those important things. On one of the biggest days of his life so far he did not want to be walking around in a robe that was several sizes too small and standing out like a sore thumb. Because it was so late we couldn't do anything about it until morning. So we all slept terribly wondering how it would play out. The rational part of our brains knew that it wasn't a big deal and he would be able to exchange it for the right size. But that tiny little part that thinks of the worse case scenarios meant we tossed and turned all night. Wes got up super early to get to the bookstore right when they opened. Thankfully it was easy to fix it, just like we knew it would, and now we laugh about it. But in the moment Wes was not a happy camper.

Back to the big day. We started out the morning with a Prayer Service in the Basilica. This is such a beautiful cathedral and this was actually the first time Wes and I had ever attended a service there. It was lovely. They then served a brunch in the law school for everyone which was quite good. We got to snap a few pictures outside of the law school (I really don't have pics to post because I didn't take hardly any, so hopefully you saw the ones that family posted to facebook. I'm terrible at remembering pictures and I also realized we never got one of the whole group together! oh well) and Wes had a few surprises for me. I actually kind of ruined the first surprise. It was while we were getting ready back at the apartment and Wes had already gone to sort out the robe issue when I noticed hanging behind the door a blue sash. It looked like a part of the graduation garb he was supposed to wear so I called him to ask if he needed it. Wes said he didn't after a sigh. So I asked should I leave it at home and again his response was no. I was confused. That's when he told me it was actually for me to wear. It was a stole of gratitude that he had planned on giving to me later in the day in person. I felt really bad I had spoiled his surprise, but I was also so touched he had thought of me on his big day. Well, it turned out I hadn't completely spoiled things because right before the graduation ceremony he also gave me a ring - again, take a look at the facebook pictures Shannon posted. It's called a Claddaugh ring and is given to someone as a token of love and gratitude. It's beautiful - it has two hands that wrap around as part of the band and they hold a heart with a crown on it. This one is special because the heart has a little gold ND on it, for Notre Dame of course :) I definitely felt very loved and honored again as Wes gave this to me, especially since I had only given him a note a few days earlier. I wasn't the one that put in countless hours of studying, that went to class, or took the finals. I didn't earn the law degree, I just loved my husband and tried to make things easier for him by doing what I could do - cook, clean, and earn our living. But he reminded me that we did this together.

The actual graduation ceremony was very nice. They held it indoors because of the questionable weather. With the J.D. they hand out the diploma but they also do a hooding ceremony. The hood is just a part of the special robes they wear. The graduates would walk up on stage when their name was called and a professor would place the 'hood' over their head. It's really more of a scarf/sash looking thing that is worn over your shoulders and down your back. What's fun is if the graduate had a family member that is a Notre Dame Law alumni or practicing judge or professor, that person gets to hood the graduate. Anyway, the best part was Wes of course! He was given one of three awards that had not been given the day before. And this was a complete surprise because they don't tell anyone or rank the students. But this meant that Wes was in the top three of his entire graduating class!! His best friend and study partner for all three years also got one of the awards as well. It was such a fun way to end it all. Wes didn't think he would get it, but I wasn't surprised. I know how hard this boy has worked and he more than deserves it! I cannot tell you just how proud I am of him.

More pictures followed as well as congratulations and saying goodbye to professors and classmates. We headed home to take it easy and ordered in pizza for everyone. Yes we ate on the floor and on the air mattresses. It's a good thing our family is so easy going because that is definitely not how I would normally host a celebration! haha. We loved having our family there to be a part of this great moment. It meant so much that they were there!

The celebrating was a little short lived as we still had cleaning to do and an early start to lock up and hit the road in our two cars. Thankfully we had Shannon and Floyd's help. I didn't even have time to feel sad about leaving. I won't really miss South Bend. It was a fine place to live, but Utah is home. We will surely miss Notre Dame though. We could not have asked for a better experience there. Our little apartment with all of its quirks and sounds will hold a special place in my heart though. It was the first place we lived together as newly weds and where we established ourselves. That means something. We have a lot of great memories there.

So that concludes our adventure in the land of Michiana! We have been so blessed and even bigger, better adventures are just beginning!