It's been a very long time...

Well, to say I've been a blog slacker would be an understatement of epic proportions. For that I apologize, and I will try to do better....don't hold your breath though. Here is a catch up of the year so far...

watching Grizzlies hockey

Most importantly, things have been going really really well for us so far this year. We spent the first months of the year at soccer, hockey, arena football, and even a very very cold baseball game between the Bees and the U of U baseball team. It was a good way to pass the time and stay entertained, while I continued searching for a new job (talk about a long few months). At the end of March I started as a study coordinator at the University of Utah. I work for a couple of immunology and rheumatology doctors, studying childhood immune deficiencies and diseases. While there is still a whole lot left to learn, it feels really great to be challenged in what I'm doing once again. It's starting to maybe even feel like all those years of college were worth it.

So for the past 5 months, our lives have revolved around work. It's not all that bad though, since my sweet husband works on the floor just below mine; we get to have lunch most days, and ride home together after work. It's pretty awesome.

On May 6th, Andrew and I finally had graduation. Even though we graduated back in December, the University of Utah only holds commencement and convocation exercises in May, a whole 5 months later. So we left work early, and headed to the Huntsman Center to watch Andrew's best friend Camden Burd graduate. 2 hours later we headed home to change, and then met up with Nicole and the kids, who came up to the Huntsman Center with us to visit and take pictures before convocation started. Then we met up with my parents, and took our seats with the rest of the college of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Technically, due to the fact that we were graduating in BOTH Behavioral Science & Health and Economics, we had the option to sit with and walk with either group. We chose to sit directly between the two, because we couldn't pick. So we walked at the very end of Behavioral Science and Health, which was also the front of the Economics group, led by our other very good friend Brian Trick. It felt very surreal to walk down the stadium steps with people I've spent the last 4 years of my life with, especially with my husband right beside me. We were handed our diploma covers by a lady that the group of us eventually figured out was an Econ professor that not a single one of us had taken a class from, and then my very favorite professor at the U, Norman Waitzman, gave me a giant hug and told me congratulations. Andrew and I were extremely bummed to find out Norm wasn't announcing names this year, as last year's graduation had the feeling of a baseball stadium more than a graduation thanks to Norm's serious announcing skills. I'm pretty sure they banned him from announcing this year because of it. Total bummer. Aside from that, graduation was a great experience, and officially marked the end of our undergraduate college careers, even if 5 months late. We ended the night with dinner with my parents.

At the end of May my baby brother, Josh, graduated from Rich High School. It was so fun to watch him graduate. I never thought he'd be old enough to leave high school, and it makes me think about the fact that my own high school graduation was exactly 5 years ago. So proud of that boy!

On the way up to Josh's graduation, I threw Andrew a rediculous proposition that entailed us leaving Randolph after graduation (about 9 pm) and driving through the night to Seattle to see his family for the holiday weekend. We'd already packed to stay in Woodruff for a few days, so after shooting down all the good reasons that we shouldn't go, we opted to go for it. So after Josh's graduation ceremony ended, we rushed out to the line of graduates and hugged him goodbye, and then took off. We drove straight through to Seattle, and arrived at noon the next day, taking turns napping through the night. When we arrived, Andrew called his mother and told her that we had sent her a belated birthday present and she should look outside to see if it had arrived today, because he wanted to be on the phone with her when she opened it. When she came out to see there was no package on the front steps, we screamed surprise and jumped out from behind the garage. Oh how I wish we would have videotaped her reaction, because it was HILARIOUS! We stayed in Seattle through Monday, just enjoying time with the family. We of course made time to watch the Mariners beat the Orioles, and then we made the long trek back to Utah on Tuesday morning. I've been going through withdrawls of Seattle and Pike's Place ever since....

As for June...it was pretty boring, and consisted mostly of work. We did get to spend some awesome time with my cousin Jessica and my Uncle Kevin, who were in town from Colorado. They joined us on our family vacation up to West Yellowstone for a weekend. Although I'm 23 and I've lived in Utah my whole life, I've never actually been to Yellowstone until that weekend. It was beautiful, and the weather was perfect. We only spent a quick day there, and than drove down to Idaho Falls to watch my brother, Matt, bless my sweet baby neice Bethany. She was born 4 weeks early and spent a few days in the NICU, but is doing fantastic now and is ridiculously beautiful. It was fantastic to spend time with their family, and hold sweet Baby Bethany (even if she did projectile vommit all over me).

Uncle Kevin and Jessica with Kadence and Kash

Beautiful Baby B

Baby B in her blessing dress

The rest of June and most of July consisted of AAA baseball at the Bee's stadium. This will be our 3rd summer in a row together, and every single one has consisted of a lot of time in that stadium. We spent the 4th of July in Woodruff of course, and then headed back to catch the Sugarhouse fireworks for the 3rd year in a row. There's nothing better in the world than fireworks, so I take advantage of every opportunity I can to watch them!

This is the only picture we have of the 4th of July, watching the Woodruff parade

The rest of July was pretty uneventful, but August has been AWESOME! I've been waiting for August for MONTHS! Not only was our very 1st anniversary on August 7th, but we got to spend that anniversary in Hawaii, so that was pretty awesome too!! Post on Hawaii to come!!...along with more pictures when I get around to getting them off of Andrew's computer.