First college graduate

God is in the details of our lives.

I never dreamed when Kiersten embarked on this college adventure in August of 2017 that graduation wouldn't be happening.

It still is. Only in August.

She should have been walking in a commencement ceremony on May 1. Instead we all piled in the van (that we just sold to them) and headed to Utah Valley University to get some pictures.

A few days before, I asked on our ward Relief Society Facebook page if anyone might have a cap and gown we could borrow. I wasn't concerned about colors and really thought that I'd end up with all black.

But Heavenly Father had something better, a color I wouldn't have even imagined anyone had.

UVU Green!

My wonderful neighbor texted to say she had a black gown and a green cap.

Who holds on to these things. Turns out the gown was her husband's from college graduation and the cap was from her high school graduation.

They were perfect.

We got Mexican takeout (Joe Bandido's in Springville -- YUM!) and ate under a sky bridge of sorts to keep us out of the drizzling rain.

And then snapped some photos when we were able to.

I'm so proud of this girl. It's not an easy feat to graduate from college. But she did it in three years and pregnant her last.

As a psych major with plans to eventually get a Ph.D., she's been working on a paper she hopes to get published eventually.

18 months later . . .

My return to college classes has come to a cessation. I turned in my last paper and finished attending my last class this past week. Now I'm just waiting for grades to finalize. I feel like I can return to being a mom again. It's been a grueling 18 months but I now have 32 credits post-baccalaureate. There were days and weeks I felt like the enslaved Nephites in the Book or Mormon.They prayed for some relief and instead of deliverance, the Lord blessed them with stronger backs. I too felt so overwhelmed and in bondage to everything required of me. But, the Lord helped me keep moving forward with the important things. I found time I didn't have to complete what needed to be done. Many times my kids stepped up to clean and cook when I wasn't available.

I loved what President Nelson said in our last conference a week ago: "If you are not sure you even believe in God, start there. Understand that in the absence of experiences with God, one can doubt the existence of God. So, put yourself in a position to begin having experiences with Him." This past year's experiences undoubtedly has left me with a knowledge that God lives. When faced with insurmountable fears and uncertainty, he "strengthened my back" and opened up my Red Sea that was before me. I think God permits these life experiences so that we will remember his grace, his goodness, his love. It is in these extremities that we come to know him.

To celebrate I treated myself to a session at the Salt Lake temple and a late night of finishing a book, Return to Red Castle. A backpacking trip to Red Castle in the Uintas is in the works for this summer so I knew I needed to revisit this book that I had read as a teenager.

Well, it was definitely fluff and kept me up late finishing it. Despite being a cheesy escape novel, it was worth reading again as the hike into this lake called Red Castle was described in the book. I'm excited to visit this summer. I'm also discovering that rereading books I read in my youth leaves me with a much different taste than I had the first time I read them.

Maybe this is why reading the scriptures over and over again is so valuable. With each read, I discover new insights simply because life is different with each reading.

My celebrating continued the next day as I cleaned out my pantry, fridge, and freezer. I cranked the music loud and went to town. I have projects to finish that I had to abandon for awhile. I have books to read and another half marathon to retrain for. Life is finally beginning to feel normal again. Whatever normal is. It seems like we have this certain story that we like to tell about our life and how it's going to be. But really, does anyone ever live the story they started out to write? There's always twist in the plot that you never seem to see coming. But it always gets solved one way or another. It's the plot twists that makes a good life story, isn't it?

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Some funnies

*Alex was in the car with Tyler and me. He was playing some sort of word game on his Kindle when he piped up from the backseat, "Mom, do you know any 4-letter words that start with S?"

Hmmm . . . I sure do :)

*I had a student call me Alexa the other day. It's a title I'm not sure I've mastered yet.

*I also left a note on the board for my students to write me a post-it with something they learned that day (they had a sub). 

True Aggie

A tradition for anyone attending Utah State is whether or not you become a True Aggie.

True Aggie?

And just what is an Aggie?

Well, an Aggie is . . . an Aggie. I guess it's short for Agriculture. Ya . . . Agriculture.

First picture taken of me as an official Aggie, not a True Aggie though. This was the first week before school officially started sometime in August of 1994.

Picture of my awesome roommates. I'm not sure if any were True Aggies or not. And I think the bench was moved at some point to its current location while I was attending. In the back is Angela, Crista, Me, Angel. Front is Heidi and Kristy.

Picture of me and Kristy Breinholt, my roomie who I roomed with for a couple of years. She was a runner and I find it ironic that I never caught her bug until many years later.

Anywhooo, I did not become a True Aggie while at college. So a couple of weeks ago when we made the trip to Logan to show off the campus to Kiersten who is thinking about attending

Tyler and I decided to make it official.


Except, the plaque below said:


Full moon. Nope. Midnight. Nope. Homecoming night. Nope.

I'm afraid True Aggiehood has alluded me once again.

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During this same outing, we wanted to show the kids our first apartment. We were in the bottom, back basement. Somehow they fit four apartments in that little house.

Except it isn't there anymore. How my heart hurt when I saw the empty lot. The houses on both sides are still there but our first little home is gone.

First birthday gift for Tyler

Ty's birthday rounds out our birthdays for the year. Mine begins the year, his ends the year with all the kiddos in between. I guess we are the bookends.

He tried grilling some shrimp, something neither of us have ever done. They weren't too shabby, although the next round we won't cook them quite as long. 

Then we watched his birthday video from last year and continued watching home videos. Man you forget how your kids are at certain ages. I swear I tell myself, "I'll never forget this EVER." But I do. I'm so glad to live in the age of technology where we can keep these things forever.

One of the pictures on Ty's video was this one:

It was the first birthday gift I gave him. His mom had made him a pink quilt the year before (I'm sure it was just fabric she had around and needed to be used) but I felt like he needed a more manly quilt. My roommate Angel Quigley worked at a fabric store with a fancy quilter in the basement of the store. She let me work on it down there and then helped me with the edging.

(Homecoming Dance, Utah State Universtiy, 1995)

Sadly that quilt has seen better days. It has gotten much use and has now been retired.