Graduation

After spending about two months living life at a hectic pace we have finally sat down to document all that has been going on in our life. As I sat down to write about graduation it began to dawn on me how quickly it all seemed to go by. We were finishing up finals, packing up to move across the country, traveling every weekend and finishing all of our plans for our busy summer. In the midst of all that both of our parents journeyed out to Provo to celebrate with us. It was a whirlwind weekend with so much going on that only after the fact did I realize how exiting and happy it all was. Now that I think about it, that is how our whole college experience was. It all went by so fast, we experienced so much that I look back and think how quickly 4 years went by. Now that it is all over and I look at college as a whole rather than in semesters, phases, or moments, I realize how blessed we were. We learned so much, we grew, we made lifelong friendships and had life-changing experiences. It is rather emotional to say goodbye to that phase of life. It will be hard when Fall comes around and all of the Cougars migrate back to Provo and we will be starting our new lives in Minnesota. Life comes in phases though and it is time for us to move on with out next exciting phase!

Back to graduation though. What a cool experience to see thousands of students and parents pile into the Marriott Center to celebrate all the hard work we have put in over the last 4 years. We heard from Elder L. Tom Perry who shared a beautiful message with us. The words he spoke to us beautifully articulated what I was feeling at that moment, and still at this moment two months later. He said:

" Today you graduate. Your undergraduate years are now over. You are now finished with this point of your life. You will not travel this road again. There will be no retakes, second chances, or repeats. You have your degree. It has been a lot of hard work. Today you have a great deal of satisfaction for what you have accomplished. You will always have special memories of these wonderful days. With this degree has come accumulated experience and hard-earned wisdom.

Tomorrow the journey in life resumes for you. The choices you make will make all the difference in what you want to achieve. With all of these new decisions and challenges before you, let me encourage you to seek and find a balance in your future life. "

There are countless things we will miss at BYU, below are some of those things.

Our friends.

Tasty Bevs with This Guy.

Intramurals.

The mountains.

BYU Sports.

The Tanner Building.

This girl.

Having my sisters close.

Being young and free.

Hemet Dinners.

Viva Las Vegas

As if we didn't take enough weekend trips during the last month of school, we decided to pack up and head down to Vegas for reading days. Taylor had NEVER been to Vegas and we had won tickets to a show as part of our prize for participating in a case competition this year, so we decided to live it up and spend a night in Vegas. 

We went with our good friend James and had a blast. We filled our day with people watching, checking out ornate hotels, drinking tasty bev's and being entertained by the comedy of Jim Gaffagan and a cool percussion performance that night. We walked all day checking out the cool hotels, watching the Bellagio Fountains and avoiding creepy people on the street. We stayed the night on the strip and made our way back to Utah the next afternoon after exploring the strip a little more, stopping at the slowest Subway in the world and making a pit-stop for some delicious ice cream. Needless to say, best two day trip ever!

 Did I mention that we had to drive through a blizzard to get to Vegas? Ya not cool Utah.

An All-American Weekend

As one of our many weekend trips before school came to an end, we spent a long weekend in Parawon, UT with the Toshimas. They invited us to enjoy an All-American weekend with them at their parent’s home down in southern Utah. The weekend consisted of four-wheeling through to hills of Parowan. Taylor naturally was fearless right from the start and was riding all over whereas I had to get past a slight bout of terror before I could enjoy myself. We also took some calm rides to the red rocks to see some fossils and petroglyphs, we roasted marshmallows up by the Parowan “P” on the hill, played games, ate meals on the porch and ate the biggest burrito I’ve ever had at one of Parowan’s few restaurants. It was a quant town, one tiny grocery store, a few gas stations and no fast food. We rode the four-wheelers everywhere around town instead of the car. It was a fun experience to take our minds of our looming finals and enjoy time with some good friends before we had to say good-bye.

             
                                        

We took a really fun side trip one afternoon to Bryce Canyon since I had never been. Talk about amazing nature, the park was jaw-droppingly gorgeous! 

Idaho...where the potatoes grow!

General conference weekend was no excuse to rest from our travels. We took the opportunity to journey up to Idaho once more to spend some time with Taylor’s Granny and Grandpa. We stayed the weekend with Shawn and Patrice and I was able to meet more of the Walters side of the family. Patrice is a wonderful cook and took good care of us while we were there. The weekend was filled mostly with yummy meals, listening to conference and visiting with Granny and Grandpa. Also, you cant go to Newdale without visiting the potato factory, taking a tour, and leaving with a 70 lbs. sample of potatoes!