Mandie's B-day

Mandie is EIGHT!!!  

She's so good at showing her excitement over presents.

Nat made her cake, super cute right?

Mandie loved second grade this year.  She had so much fun with her friends every day and she really loved her teacher.  She continues to be an excellent student and loves reading and learning.  She's still in girl scouts and really loves that too.

Graduation Day!

You guys, I am DONE with my master's degree!  I can't believe it!  3 years of classes every Saturday, 1,050 hours of practicum, 16 trips to Salt Lake, and of course all the homework-- DONE!

Here I am with some of my classmates on our last day of classes.  

We were pretty psyched.

(That's the big U on the U of U campus in the background)

Graduation was 2 weeks later, and it was in Salt Lake too.  It was quite a production.  My parents and Jason's dad came up for it.  Jason's mom was planning to come too, but she injured her back and was ordered by the doctor to stay home.  It was pretty sad.  And of course Jason couldn't come either.  He was willing to come and suffer, but we knew it would be way too much for him.  Plus just the logistics would have been so hard to figure out with parking and all that.  There was a live feed of the graduation online, and he actually got to watch most of it....right up until a few minutes before it was my turn to get my diploma of course, then it quit working.  Still, it was fun for me to text him throughout the ceremony and feel like he was sharing the experience with me.

We drove up the morning of graduation in a 3 car caravan.  My mom rode in my van with me so she could take the kids.  They dropped me off and went to find parking on the crazy crowded U of U campus.

I loved being with all of my school pals, being excited and trying to fix each other's hoods.

Finally walking to Kingsbury Hall.....

This was my view from the front row, my family is up there on the balcony on the left.  The ceremony was good, and not too long.

My just-about-to-get-my-diploma selfie!

Sure do love these two!  I could not have gotten my degree without their financial and moral support, I am SO lucky that they're my parents!

How sweet was Jason's dad to come all the way up for my graduation?  Jason's parents have also been a huge support to us since Jason became disabled.  As usual his Dad was fixing things in our house as soon as he got to Cedar.

Love these five cuties too!  They've been incredibly patient and helpful during my long hours of working and schooling and homeworking.  

So after that part was all done, we went to Olive Garden for dinner!  It was really fun. 

After that we said goodbye to Jason's dad and went to my Aunt Sheri's house in Bountiful, where her new husband David had put together a lovely party for us!  Some of my other relatives that live around there came too.  It was so fun to see everyone.

THEN we drove up to Heber to stay at Jen's house!  We had a totally fun day with them on Saturday, then came back to Cedar where I got to spend Mother's Day with my Mom!

Payson Day!

Thank goodness the Young Women (for whom I'm the secretary) planned a trip to the Payson Temple open house and invited us to bring our families.  It's the kind of thing I would have really wanted to do but wouldn't have had the time to plan, and I never would have actually made it.

BUT I was so excited to give my kids a chance to go to an open house, especially in the town where I grew up!!

The temple was SO BEAUTIFUL.  Definitely one of my favorites.  The stained glass was the best part.  And it was also really fun to remind each other that pretty soon this would be US helping out at our very own temple open house!

After the open house we had lunch, then I took my kids on a tour of Payson.  I lived in Payson from 1979-1990 (10 months-11 years old).

First we went to my old house!  I knocked on the door and asked if we could see the back yard, but it looked nothing like it did when I was a kid.

The back steps looked exactly the same though!

 Then we walked to this building, which used to be the library, so they could see how easy it was for me and Jana to walk there every single day in the summer!  This pic is taken from in front of my house, that's how close it was.  

I also showed them the city center on the other side of the library where we used to go to get gum and jellybeans from the little machines there.  And they saw how close my elementary school was too.

Then on our way back to the car we walked down the sidewalk across the street.  We didn't have a sidewalk on our side when I was little, so all of our roller skating and bike riding was done over there.

 

Next stop: The green church!  Just around the corner from my old house. 

Then we drove the 4 blocks up to the park!  My mom used to take us there often in the summer with a picnic, it was our favorite thing to do.  I tried to find parts of the park that still looked like they did in the 80's. 

 The stage is still there!

And this donkey teeter totter!

 And this is where we usually ate our picnics.

It was so fun to show all this to the kids, and it was so cute how interested they were.  They always want to hear stories about when I was little.