Graduation Extravaganzas

A lot has happened over the past 2 months, but I'm much too lazy to write about it all, so I'll give a synopsis. Most of April was spent in a newborn haze, you know, where most of your energy is spent caring for a new baby and obsessing about sleep-but not actually getting any. Jamie saved up all of his vacation time from the past 2 years, so he's been on paternity leave since Asher's birth. It's been wonderful having him around. Toward the end of April when Asher was 3 weeks old, we packed up our car and both kids and made the trek to West Virginia to look for housing. That was kinda fun, but mostly not:) We wanted to buy, but after searching for a week, we just couldn't find anything we loved, so we decided to go with one of the hospital's rental homes. We're actually pretty excited, the house we got is a decent size, has a flat yard (a rarity in Charleston), and is super close to the hospital. So if anyone finds themselves in WV, hit us up! The day after getting back from WV, Jamie packed his bags again and headed out to Utah for 5 days for his brother Dan's BYU graduation. I missed him while he was gone, but managed to survive with both kids on my own (I thought of it as preparation for residency!)

Dan and his cute pregnant wife Ashley (who also graduated from UVU). They'll be moving to Des Moines this summer to start med school at DMU....wahoo!

I also graduated from UNMC in early May, but decided not to walk because I was basically too cheap to pay to for a cap and gown rental. Maybe one day I'll start to feel more sentimental about things...
      We headed up to Estherville toward the end of May to help another one of Jamie's brothers, Brad, celebrate his high school graduation. While in E'ville, Jamie also gave Asher his baby blessing. Once again my lack of sentiment and cheapness came into play because instead of buying a cute blessing outfit, I decided to borrow one from my sister-in-law (who has a little boy a few months older than Asher). Unfortunately, our chunky Ash-man was too big for it and looked like a stuffed sausage, so a white onesie had to do on his special day...

We also spent time playing with family and enjoying the great outdoors (aka Gma and Gpa's driveway) while up north.

Marlee's makeshift rain gear.

Cute cousins chillin' out maxin' relaxin' looking all cool

After spending a few days in Estherville we headed down to Des Moines to celebrate a day we have been looking forward to for a long time: Jamie's medical school graduation. Can't believe 4 years have passed by already! We will forever look back on the roller-coaster of our med school years with fondness. I think Charles Dickens was referring to medical school when he wrote, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...." Although challenging, we feel like our Des Moines days were some of the best we've had. We made some great friends, grew closer as a couple, expanded our family, and most importantly, learned that we can do hard things. Even though our weekend in Des Moines was jam-packed with graduation dinners, picnics, ceremonies and family, we still managed to get together with some of our very favorite people.We BBQ'ed with our pals the Taylors, Baumgartners, and JBDB one night, and met up with our friends the DeMars and Barretts for breakfast. I'm just bummed I didn't get any friend pictures!

The fiercesome foursome, or something like that...

Both sets of Jamie's grandparents came from Utah to attend!

Pre-graduation dinner

The Dr. is in the house!

Hermanos hanging out at our hotel after party

Now that graduations are over, we're on the short countdown for our move East. Can't wait for the next chapter of our lives to begin! I hope it will be just as great as the last!