Pomp and Circumstance

Eric has probably taken the longest to graduate, and still graduate in only nine semesters. Between an LDS mission, Basic Training, AIT, a year deployment to Iraq and taking some extra classes because his calendar year changed, its incredible that Eric graduated in seven years, but only nine semesters! Go hubby! I'm so proud of him!

Since Eric got home from Iraq 11 months ago, he hasn't really gotten a break. Poor man went to class the day after coming home and spending days traveling... not to mention that he had already missed a few days of classes! We got married a month later, and he missed a week of classes for our honeymoon. It wasn't an easy first semester back. Thanks to BYU-Idaho's short semesters with their equally short breaks in-between he barely had a chance to catch his break before another semester started. So I think he definitely deserves a little "time off" while he searches for a job. Not that he's sitting around lounging on the couch... nope, he's currently out on our 4 X 5 porch nailing and gluing together the gun cabinet he's making--Love him!

Most of Eric's family and my parents were able to make it to Eric's graduation. It was great to share that moment with them and for them to experience first hand the hottest summer Rexburg, Idaho has ever produced in our tiny, second story apartment without air conditioning while we waited for everyone to arrive, now they believe us when we complain about the heat.

Anyways despite the crowds and traffic we made it time to commencement and then ended up sitting and waiting until it actually at 6:00. Eric was one of 1,700 sem-odd people marching in. I didn't get a picture of him at actual commencement. And because BYU-Idaho loves us oh so much they decided to make convocation directly after commencement, so we booked it up to the Hinckley building, saved seats and grabbed some pictures before it started at 8:00 because we didn't think we would get out of there before the sun went down.

A nice pictureEric with his parent's Holly and Mark.

And this is what happens in between pictures :)

Eric with Andrew, Annie and Ben.

Eric and his signature "stance."

Waiting in line to get his empty diploma cover.

A little blurry, but I think it's a great picture.

As soon as convocation was over we grabbed some Papa Murphy's pizza and some ice cream and went back to our little apartment to celebrate and eat because at this point we were all starving.

The next day we went to Grandma Andrus' place and had an awesome potluck luncheon with lot of delicious food and great company. Thanks to all the family that came!