Spring Break/BYUI Graduation Trip Part 2: The days leading up to graduation.

We had four days between arriving in Rexburg and graduation. In some ways it felt like a really long week; in other ways the week went very quickly.

I guess when you've waited 27 whole long years to finally graduate from college those last 4 days can seem like 400 days. Or years. Or whatever.

Anyway.

Here's what we did during those 4 days:

We woke up to snow Monday morning.  Really? Snow on Spring Break? Many of our friends were at the beach...

We spent the rest of the day in Ammon visiting my parents while John worked in Pocatello. We hung lots of pictures and did some shopping. It was a fun day!

Tuesday Kailen and I had lunch with Lauri, a dear, sweet friend I met in one of my religion classes. It was so fun to visit with her, and I'm so thankful for the friends I've made in my classes, even though Lauri is the only one I ever actually got to meet.

As a "reward" for practicing their piano for their upcoming festival, we took Riley and Hannah bowling. We had a great time!

Zach taught John some tricks on Excel. 

Zach was one of seven winners of the Newel K. Whitney Award:

We took a picture of the television screen in the Smith building which showed all the winners for the Winter Semester (Zach's top right). We thought Zach told us there was a picture of him on a wall in the building, so we traipsed up all four flights of stairs and checked out all four floors in the building to find his picture. We couldn't find it, so we called him. That's when we found out the pictures of the winners were on a TV screen. On the first floor. Right by the stairs. Awesome. However, walking around this building brought back many fun memories for John and me, as we spent many hours in this building taking our own business classes many years ago.

Pretty cool!

Wednesday we just hung out at Janine's house. It was so nice to not really have anything to do. My parents also came to stay at Janine's until Friday. It was so fun being with so much family!

Thursday we spent some time on campus (and way too much time at the bookstore--we are now fully decked out in BYUI gear for years to come!), and went to Grad Fest, where we picked up all our caps and gowns and got some fun BYUI stuff in a goody bag. I wasn't able to attend Grad Night since it was held the week before we got to Rexburg, and I really wanted one of the BYUI Alumni key chains that they handed out that night. I explained this to the Alumni Director who was running Grad Fest and asked if they had any keychains left. He asked if I was an online student and about my experience in the program. I told him it was awesome! He said he did have some key chains and to "wait right here" and he'd be back in a few minutes. He came back with a BYUI Alumni bag filled with not only a keychain, but a CD holder, a BYUI Alumni tshirt, a magnet, some BYUI truffles, and some other stuff I can't remember right now. The other graduates were a bit envious, I must say. :) He also asked me to email him and tell him about my story of online learning and finishing my degree after all these years (which I still need to do...).

And now we're to Friday, when I finally get to graduate from college.

Stay tuned for part three. Which might take a few days since I still need to weed through 480 pictures.

John, the photographer, didn't want to miss a thing.

And I think that's pretty cute.