Michael & Amanda and chicklets to call our own: July 2012

... but I'll shave it for later.

It has been a long running joke with my classmates that one our teachers needs a mustache. We started it a long time ago, I think the first semester we were all together. Now it's just a funny thing that we just do. So of course, as our journey together was coming to a close, we could not help ourselves but get mustaches and take pictures with them.

Did I mention that we're graduating?! Woo hoo! From left to right: Lisa Colman (ring leader of the mustaches), Elyssa staker, Julie Brown, Mallory Rolz, Monica Young, me, Dr Dredge, Megan Ferguson, Sister Baeze, Kelly Sharp, Bailey Dill, Paige Mousely, Amanda Correy, Haley van Wagoner, Brooke Richins. Man, that was hard to remember everyone's last name since half of them got married after I met them.

I can't remember why I'm not wearing my robe. . . The heat, the claustrophobia, I dunno, I probably just wanted to show off how awesome I look after having a baby! :] Oh and black robes are for those graduating with bachelors and blue for associates.

Ok, the joke with this is that our only girl teacher, Sister Baeza, is really hated by most, if not all, students that take her classes. There is kind of an atmosphere of easiness with the classes taught at the livestock center and this teacher brought some pretty intense expectations and not a single ounce of pity. I really liked her as a teacher. She actually taught us and made us push ourselves to do more, definitely a lot more than any teacher I've had at this school. So all the students in the other classes would write her nasty emails about how mean she was and how her classes were too hard and how she made the Spirit leave the classroom, blah blah blah. One of those emails was sent to the chair of the department and the dean of the college. Yea, her 2 immediate bosses. So she had to reform some and become more "pink and fluffy" in order to not make the students cry after every test. The students in my group all thought she was pretty great. She has a real sarcastic sense of humor and once you get used to how she teaches, she's pretty awesome. When she wasn't being "pink and fluffy" we would call her "blue and prickly."

Our graduating class, all 15 of us, had a get together with our families and each other before graduation.

This is my best friend Amber Holshouser. She graduated with a bachelors in recreation management.

This is my other best friend Megan Ferguson. She graduated with my group with an associates in veterinary technology.

That's me! I graduated with an associates in veterinary technology.

I'm writing this post in December and post dating it to July. When I walked for graduation I still had one more credit to fill; I had to complete a final internship. So technically I wasn't graduated yet. That being said, I was asked to speak at the December graduation. Yay I get to do it all again! Thank goodness I kept my cap and gown. Here's what I can remember of my speech:

Ok guys, put your books away, it's time for a pop quiz. I don't know about you guys but I'm so excited to never hear that again! Congratulations, you did it! This is it, end of the line, and the hardest part is almost over. Sure you just finished the hardest finals of your life, after all what makes finals harder than knowing you'll never have to do them again? But I'd say walking across this stage is the hardest part. You know, that fight or flight response kicks in and some of us just run right across the stage! There's almost an emptiness when you finish something that's taken you so long to complete. So what do you do now? Where do you go from here? Well, if you can follow this advice, or at least listen to it, you'll be golden. Don't for once think you're done learning, that's what life's all about. And don't think you're done being tested either. Sure, you don't have to go to the testing center any more, no more bubble sheets and essays, but life is full of tests. And believe it or not, you're ready. You're ready to learn, to be tested and to be proven good and worthy. A great man once told me that Rexburg is like a cow pie. There is an over abundance of spiritual encouragement here and a sense of security in knowing that most everyone that lives here believes in what we believe in. You're not going to find that anywhere else. But what happens when you take that cow pie, break it up, and spread it out? You make the grass greener everywhere you go. So what are you spending your time on? Is it spread out or all focused on one thing? Mahatma Ghandi said "be the change you want to see in the world." So be good at your careers, your jobs, be good at your church callings and don't ever forget to be good at your families. It is up to you, my fellow graduates, so I say again, "be the change you want to see in the world."

My talk was supposed to be "no longer than 5 minutes." I took that direction a little too literally and probably only spoke for a minute and half, if that. The other student speaker that spoke before me also talked about cows and the main speaker that spoke after talked about being tested. It was really cool how well our talks all went together. I got to speak in the I-center. It was really scary. The podium is ginormous and the lights shining on you are so bright that I couldn't see anybody in the first 10 rows. The cow pie reference went over well, lots of chuckles and the speaker after me mentioned it too. The guy who spoke after me was awesome, I still can't stop thinking about the things he shared in his talk. Here's some of it:

Satan is going to tell you 3 things in life.

1. The gospel is not true.

You will receive with a surety the knowledge of its truthfulness by the Holy Spirit.

2. Ok, the gospel is true, but it's not for you.

You will attend church and follow the commandments and feel of the good that the gospel brings to your life.

3. Ok, it's true and it's for you, but you don't have to do anything about it right now.

Satan's easiest way to get to us is procrastination. Procrastination is not just the thief of time, it is the thief of our accountability and our virtue and we must do something now in order to save our souls in the future.

When we were excused to go to our seats to walk with our classmates across the stage, I left. I had already walked the previous semester and didn't care to walk again. I can tell you though that I have never prayed so hard in my life than right before I spoke. I went to the bathroom before I took my seat and not 10 minutes later I thought I was gonna pee my pants! It was at that point that the Garth Brooks song Unanswered Prayers popped in my head and made me laugh as I walked very slowly to the podium. That's a good way to start a speech, right? Already laughing...

We love hiking. We would do it every day if we could. We love waterfalls. We love mountains. We love wildlife. We love the outdoors. In fact, we love all of these things to much that they will probably be our deciding factor in where we end up living more than anything else. Sorry moms. And we enjoy the outdoors as often as we possibly can. This time around, we decided to take a friend with us, since she also likes hiking and likes us. We went to Teton National Park to hike around Jenny Lake. We've heard lots of good things about Jenny Lake and have been to the Tetons and through the park even a bunch of times, but have never done anything around this lake. The hike was a couple miles long, like 3 ish but you can cut it in half by riding a boat across the lake and walking only a short distance to the falls then back to the boat. Since we actually enjoy the walking aspect of hiking, we chose to omit the boat ride no matter how cool it looked. We had Ivan in his cool carrier backpack and started our walk. The scenery is simple stunning. I cannot believe how gorgeous the Teton Mountain Range is. It amazes me every single time we go. I'm so grateful to live close by and be able to visit pretty much whenever we want.

Ivan was not happy about being stuck in the back pack and he sure let us know about it. There were quite a few people on the trail, since it was the weekend and a really nice day, and I felt bad that Ivan was crying while we were hiking. But hey, that's better warning to the bears that we were coming! Parts of the trail were so heavily covered in berry plants that I expected a bear to be on the trail with us! Thank goodness they weren't ripe yet, and I sure wouldn't take this trail at any other time of year. Ivan eventually settled down. He's got to the point that he needs to be free to move and explore at his own pace. Too bad that doesn't keep up with mom and dad. I can't remember why, but we were on a pretty tight schedule that day, so we were really pushing the pace.

Hidden Falls

The falls were pretty, and very well hidden from the trail. We almost thought that these falls were called something else because the trail didn't go right to them. We got to see people that had taken the boat ride on the opposite side, which was neat, and encouraging because our view was better. On our way out of the parking lot we heard a noise like we had a flat tire, oh great. But they had just paved the parking lot and had one of those flappy things that marks the parking spots come loose. Thank goodness! I just pulled that thing off and we were good to go! On our way out of the park we spotted an antelope. A pretty close antelope too.