The One with Paige's Graduation - Part II

It has been a busy past couple of days! My family flew in on Wednesday afternoon. My mom and sister picked me up from work and they had fun picking out lots of scrapbooking supplies for super cheap. We stopped off at Einstein Bagel and what should have been a 10 minute snack stop turned into a 2 hour excursion...When we drove into the parking lot we heard a "pop" and when Mom got out of the car she heard a "hiiisssss". An allen wrench got stuck in the tire! How in the world did that happen? We took the car over to Costco where they pointed us to Big O Tires and they fixed the hole. Random huh? That night we ate pizza and watched a couple episodes of Supernatural then Allison came over to our apartment for a sleepover.

On Thursday I went into work for a half day then drove to Provo to eat lunch at the Pita Pit with the Evans'. It was so good! Too bad the parking situation is bollocks. There's about 10 parking spots and that's it. If you park anywhere else within a two mile radius, your car will get towed in 10 seconds. I parked in the faculty lot and prayed I wouldn't get a ticket. I didn't -yay. Then I got dressed in my graduation costume and we took pictures outside. It was snowing and I was freezing. It has never snowed as much as it has this last year. The first snow was in early September and it's still snowing in late April. The summers are unbearably hot here so I actually like that it's still cool.

Believe it or not, this is technically my second time walking. The first time was when I was in my mother's womb. Doesn't she look pretty? You can't even tell she was 8.5 months pregnant!















We walked about a mile for the procession then finally I found my seat in the Marriott center. Coincidentally my family was seated just above me so afterwards I walked up the stairs and we went on our way rather than having to search for them among over 6200 graduates plus all the visitors. My Grandma Doris cooked an amazingly delicious Thai food dinner. My little nephew Drew kept hitting his head and falling down, the poor guy! We finished up just in time for the return of LOST. Only the best show on earth! Thursday's episode was no disappointment.

On Friday my mom and sister and I went into work so they could get more scrapbooking stuff. Then we all went to the De Jong concert hall for the other part of graduation. This time they called all our names individually as we walked across the stage and received our diploma covers. I said goodbye to my professors, goodbye to my fellow graduates, and goodbye to BYU. I will miss it! I came home and took a much needed nap then we headed up to Sandy to eat at Texas Roadhouse. The traffic up there was horrendous and the waiter told us it'd be an hour and a half wait. Luckily Texas Roadhouse is in the South Towne Mall parking lot so we just perused all the shops. My dad *almost* bought me a new phone because the one I'm using now is on its last leg. Too bad the one and only employee was too busy helping people or I might actually have a new red Juke cell phone. Oh well, my birthday is coming up.

We ended up waiting only an hour and 15 minutes before we were seated at two tables, back to back. The bread rolls and honey cinnamon butter alone were enough to make the wait worth it. I got pulled pork and Chris got some steak. It was delicious!

Saturday we woke up bright and early and went on a hike. Our plan (at least I thought this was the plan) was to hike up to the "Y" and keep going until we reached snow. Here we are sitting at the top of the "Y."I wore Pumas that I work out in and are by no means snow shoes. Once we reached the snow, we kept going. Apparently that was the plan all along. My feet were soaked and freezing by the time we reached the summit, but the view made it all worth it. My body aches and I have a nasty sun burn, but there's nothing quite like being on top of a mountain. We found an abandoned air mattress and had fun sliding on it down the hills. Once we reached the car we went to J Dawgs. It was my first time eating one of those hot dogs and I was impressed. I will definitely eat there again, especially since it's so close to our apartment.Here is a GPS map of our hike. If you look closely you can see the white "Y" on the mountain (it's in the middle of the bottom third of the picture). Following the red line, we hiked up to the "Y" then turned right and kept going up through the canyon then around the back of the mountain. In total we hiked 10.5 miles with 4,011' of climbing. Good times.

This is me and my brother (I was about 8 and Eric was about 5) sitting in almost the exact same spot as Chris and me in this current picture.















After the hike, I quickly cleaned up (I was a muddy and stinky mess) and then went shopping with my mom and sister. We dropped her off at a friend's house then we went over to my grandparent's for Cincinnati Chili. I swear I have never eaten such good food as these past couple of days! Then Mom came over and watched two episodes of Supernatural but I fell asleep at 8.

I am officially graduated and it's a great feeling! Next time this year I'll be blogging about Chris' graduation!