I Graduated!

After almost 10 years, I finally graduated with a bachelors of science in web design and development! I had done about 2.5 years right after high school between BYU-I and BSU, but then decided to pursue esthetics instead.
After moving to PA and having a baby I kind of fell out of sync with the esthetics world and decided I should just finish the bachelors I started so long ago! In January of 2015 I started back to school online through BYU-I. I then did 6 semesters of 12+ credits in 18 months so that I could finish faster. Graduation was July 20, 2016 and we went to Rexburg for the occasion.
We first drove to St. Anthony to meet up with one of my all time favorite roommates, Erika! She had just had a baby but she still made us an awesome lunch and it was so fun to meet her husband, daughter, and just catch up! It was like no time had passed even though I hadn't seen her in probably 8ish years?!
After that I had to get back to Rexburg to pick up my cap and gown. The rebel in me worse shorts. ON CAMPUS. to get it. I had looots of stares, ha. Once we picked it up we went to Porter Park to meet up with another roommate, Megan, and her family! She has 2 adorable little boys and it was so fun to see her and watch the boys play. Spencer saw the little splash pad/water park as soon as we got there and it was a lost cause trying to get him to do anything else. He was fully clothed and sopping wet just bombing it head-first down the water slide! He was in heaven. Jake and Emily met up with us at this point and as always, it was so fun to see them (and to have extra eyes on Spencer).
We went and ate dinner with Jake and Emily and then went back to Porter Park to see even more friends! Another roommate, Becky, who lives in Arizona, had been up in Island Park with her family and so they were nice enough to drive down to Rexburg to see us, even though it was only like 20 minutes!

I got really lucky in the roommate department at BYU-I and lived with some of the best girls! I love that even though we never see each other, they were willing to come reconnect! If only I had taken some pictures with any of them!!

Finally, it was time for the actual graduation. We were running late so I didn't even have time to fix my hair or really even look in a mirror. I ran into a bathroom stall and put a dress on about 10 minutes before the ceremony started. I walked, and for some reason I was about to cry the whole time I was shaking the important people's hands, ha. I think just the relief that I was actually done, and because it was a really hard year and a half for me!!

The next morning we headed for Yellowstone with my mom and dad. We had such a fun 3 days there, camping, hiking around, seeing all the wildlife, and just not having anything to worry about!

Spencer spent a lot of time up there.

seriously, so pretty with the blue and orange!

Nate's at the bottom of the falls, can you see him?

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

we thought that looked like too many stairs for us.

this guy walked right through our camp the last night.

he's pretty popular with the tourists! This is the second time the Asians have just been infatuated with him and wanted to hold him and take his picture :)

Spencer was hilarious, every time we saw a buffalo he would say, "there's a buffalo lets laugh at him" and then he would do this crazy fake laugh. Or else he would say "let's moo at him" and then would moo. No idea where it came from but it was great!

I had really wanted to see a bear and a moose while there and I did get to see a bear's back half, it wasn't good enough so on our way back to Rexburg we made a stop at Bear World and it was so much fun!

When it was finally time to head back to west Idaho on Sunday, we drove the "back roads" and made a stop at Craters of the Moon. It was neat, my favorite part was climbing through the caves, plus it was nice and cool down there, great to escape the hot sun! We also had an eventful half hour where my dad locked his keys in his truck. Fortunately, his window was cracked just far enough that between he and Nate and fishing poles, and a bent roasting stick, they were able to get it open. Though not before setting off the alarm multiple times.
A fun trip but I am SO glad to be done with school!