Happy Birthday Brad!

Today is Brad's birthday! We had French Pancakes for breakfast. We even had fresh strawberries.

Tonight Aaron (Brad's brother) came over and we had cake. But it wasn't any cake. Brad made a special request for a Dairy Queen ice cream cake. YUMM!!!

And of course, Brad opened up presents. Brad got a bunch of Nintendo games from Aaron. Brad also got a card from Grandma. Thanks everyone! Brad also got a few little gifts from me. I made him a coupon book with gift certificates for things like back massages, date nights planned by me, and his favorite dinner. It was my only birthday surprise all day.

Brad ruined a lot of his birthday surprises. Like French Pancakes. They were supposed to be a surprise. I tried making the batter when I knew Brad would be in class. However, Brad's class was canceled so he came home an hour earlier than I thought he would. Oh, well. And he knows about his big gift. He kind of had to though. I wanted to get Brad a camelbak so we could go hiking & biking together. However, I knew that Brad would be particular about what he got. So, I told him what I wanted to get him and we went and picked out the perfect pack. It's coming in the mail so he'll have to wait a little bit before he will get his birthday gift. He's so excited for it though. He's going to be able to fit in his camera and tripod so when we go hiking he can take pictures as we are going along.

Happy Birthday Brad!

Brad's Best Photos

Brad is a great photographer, and I thought I should share some of his best photos.

Easter Eggs

By popular demand, more eggs.

Mr. & Mrs. Fitzgerald

Yesterday, Brad and I went to our friends' wedding. Shelley was my roommate for a year and a half and I was around when Shelley started to date Trevor. These two have so much fun together and they make such a great couple. They have a really cute story which you can read here. It was really exciting to be there for their sealing and to celebrate their day together.

Shelley is one of the happiest people I know.

Shelley and Me

Bridesmaids

Us in front of the temple

I've never seen so much cake everywhere after the cake fight these two had. Trevor had it into his hair!

It was really fun to spend the day with these two celebrating. This was the first sealing that we've been to since our own wedding day and so it was nice to go and listen to what was said. All together it was a beautiful day celebrating a beautiful couple.

What A Relief

Brad and I finished finals!!! Neither of us failed any of them so that was good. And I saw some hilarious things during finals week which made all the stress bearable. Like a girl who brought in a 5 foot long peacock feather attached to her pencil. The poor guy sitting two desks behind her kept getting it in his face. Too bad I was in the testing center or else I might have taken a picture.

Also, I almost got hit by a duck. If you have been on BYU campus you know there are ducks everywhere. So, I was walking home, minding my business, when a duck got scared and flew right in front of my face. There was a guy walking in front of me who turned around to see what was happening and he started laughing. It was just the sort of thing you wish you had on film because it will never happen again (at least, I hope I doesn't happen again. It was kind of scary.)

Mostly, we're just excited to be done and have a weekend together. We had it all semi-planned out. Tomorrow, we're going to Trevor and Shelley's wedding. The rest of the weekend will be spent doing spring cleaning and having fun together. Also, since Brad's birthday is next Wednesday we're going to do something fun for that as well. However, good news has changed some of our plans.

What is my good news? Well, I got the internship I wanted! I'm so excited. It's with a group called RISE and I'll be mentoring a child with disabilities for the summer. As part of this we meet together with a group of eight other kids and their mentors and go do fun things together like swimming, bowling, painting, etc. And I get paid for going to do all these fun things.

The bad news with this is I have manditory meetings on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings next week which means celebrating Brad's birthday will have to be postponed. Brad has classes all day Wednesday so I'll have to figure out something extra special to do for him since I won't see him all day. But we'll have lots of time to celebrate since summer is finally here!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! Brad and I dyed easter eggs yesterday. We had the usual easter things drawn on the eggs (i.e. chicks and sheep), but then we had some unusual things as well. Like T-bone steaks, mummies, and a pink rhinoceros.

Chick

Moose

I think it's impressive that Brad could draw these things on with an invisible crayon and still have them come out look like they represent something. I'll stick with drawing squiggles.

We also made jello eggs. We tried this last year by using real eggshells as the molds (we cleaned them out really well first), but this year we used a real mold instead. It was a lot easier. The tricky part was getting them out. Last year we could just peal off the eggshell. This year we had to be really careful not to break them in half when we pulled the mold apart. But they turned out pretty good. I think we'll keep the tradition up.

And today, we even had a good Easter dinner. You know, ham, funeral potatoes, rolls. I even tried making carrot cake cupcakes. We had Aaron and Kendra over to share it with us which was fun.

I've been so excited for Easter for the past month. I don't know why, I just have been looking forward to it. I even bought Easter candy in my excitment before St. Patrick's day. Normally, I'm disappointed when people are getting ready for a holiday when there is still another holiday to celebrate before it (ex.- people putting up Christmas before Thanksgiving). I'm sorry for all of you who love to do this, but it's just not me. So, I don't know why I had this crazy excitment to get ready for Easter so early.

But Easter didn't disappoint. Brad didn't have to be gone all day Saturday (he told me earlier this week he would be gone all of Saturday for Men's Chorus, but it turned out he only had to be there 5 hours.) So, we were able to spend time together and have fun coloring our eggs and playing with jello. Now I just have to stay away from all the Cadbury eggs.

It's Official

I applied for graduation this last week. I'm going to be able to graduate in August! I'm so excited! I've been waiting on an internship to know for sure, but they just opened up a course that fulfills my capstone requirement which means I can graduate whether or not I get the internship. I'm still hopeful to get an internship, but it's nice to know that I'll be able to get everything all done.

Also, I got a call back for a second interview for the internship I would like. I'm hopeful that this will all work out. I'll keep everyone updated with how it goes.

Today was also interesting because I went to a graduation luncheon put on my major's student association. They had it in the new Gordon B. Hinckley Building. That is such a cool building. I never took advantage of the tours they gave of the building when it first opened, but I wish I would have. There was an exhibit about Christ in there that I think would be cool to go back and see. We were up on the third floor of the building which had very pretty views. There was about 50-60 people there and I actually knew a lot of people who were graduating.

When I was invited, they asked if I would like to invite a faculty member who has influenced me. I invited Dr. Elizabeth Fawcett. She taught my Theories in a Family Perspective Class which, despite it's boring name, has been my favorite class at BYU. So, I got to sit with Dr. Fawcett and another friend from that class.

And as with any good graduation celebration, there were speaches. At least they weren't the long, boring kind that were at my high school graduation. Short, funny, and with a good point. At the end, I even received a certificate of achievement for graduating as a member of the School of Family Life Student Association. But it all, once again, reminded me that I'm going to be graduating so soon.

It's a little bittersweet to be finishing school. I'm really glad to be done with papers, research articles, and exams, but I've also really loved going to BYU. Part of me wouldn't mind staying around some more. But I am graduating in August and now I have to figure out what I'm going to do out in the real world. Wish me luck!