Graduation

Who would've thought that we finally made it after three years!!!!! And while I'm sure those three years went by much slower for Nate, for the rest of us it seemed like the time just flew by. We made a lot of great friends, who we already miss dearly. But, as one last hurrah, we put on our fancy pants and watched Nate get his diploma.

The coolest part of the entire ceremony, other than the awesome red, blue, and purple robes (haha), was the Scottish bagpipe group that led the graduates into the arena. The pipes were loud, the drums were beating, and it was honestly one of the coolest things I've ever seen at any graduation, assembly, or whatever.

The student speaker did a great job. She was funny and respectful, and kept it relatively short. The main speaker however was a total dud. She had an impressive resume, and currently works in the White House, but her entire speech was essentially a stump speech for Obama. It was sickening, not because of the speech or the politics per se, but it was wildly inappropriate given that she was invited to address the graduates and offer them encouragement for the future.

What did I tell you about the robes. Awesome right?

Or not.

It's crazy to think that when we first moved to DC in '09 we didn't even know we were pregnant. Less than three years later we're toting around a sassy little princess and her bruiser of a brother.

All in all we would never trade these three years for anything. They may have prematurely aged us, but we sure had a lot of fun along the way. We spent our weekends exploring the East coast with trips to Canada, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and even a jaunt to Europe along the way.

We couldn't have done this without the support of our friends and family. We had a great support group in Virginia, led by our friends the Harris family. They were always there to try a new restaurant, take a short trip, or just get together for a Costco date -- which given our budget was about as fancy as we got back there. We're so sad to have to leave them, and Bryn is broken hearted about leaving Libby behind.

On the other side of things we had the Grandstaff's. Even though we lived several states apart, we always found time to get together in Myrtle Beach or even Paris.

Then there was our ward family. We'll always hold a special place in our hearts for everyone we met there. For the first time ever, we truly felt like we were part of a ward family. Though we can't accurately list everyone that played a role in our life, we can say that Bryn had a hard time leaving behind all of her little nursery friends. When we moved back to Utah she didn't want to make any new friends in our ward. She would crawl under the table in Nursery and quietly sob because she couldn't find her little friends. It took her a long time to get used to the idea that she wouldn't be seeing Penny, Liza, Clara, Rae, and the rest of the gang. It wasn't until we moved into a new house and a little neighbor girl came to say hi that Bryn finally started to adjust to life outside of DC.

Our families came out for graduation, we spent some time touring a few of our favorite spots and getting our house packed up. As Nate dropped us off the Airport, it was all I could do to not start shrieking uncontrollably at the thought of leaving our home behind.

Goodbye DC!!! And thanks for the memories!