Mom's Graduation

        Last month (yikes! I can't believe it was that long ago already!) we got to go down to Texas for my mom's graduation.  She got her Masters of Social Work from the University of Houston.  It was so fun to get to be there to cheer for her and spend time together as a family too!
        We got there Thursday afternoon and squeezed in a quick trip for Chris to see the chiropractic school in Pasadena.  Unfortunately it started pouring rain right as we got there so we didn't get to tour the campus, but we did get to talk with the admissions people and one of their student ambassadors.  After that, we went to my sisters house to hang out, have dinner, and help them paint (read Jenn played with Kaden while Chris painted).  :-)
        The next day was the big day and we headed downtown to the University of Houston.  I got to play with my new camera some more and discovered that it is not as simple to use as a point and shoot.  It will definitely take some learning to get great pictures, but the pictures I took turned out ok.  Here are a few of my madre and the rest of the fam during and after the ceremony.

         For dinner we went out to the Aquarium restaurant to celebrate afterwards.  It was so fun!  We had great food in a great atmosphere and really enjoyed just being together. 

        That night we made killer brownies, watched an awesome video of my mom from one of her class assignments, and just hung out.
        The next morning was an early one as we drove up to San Antonio to spend the day at Fiesta Texas.  The weather actually turned out perfect and it wasn't too hot to be walking around all day.  The lines for the "big kid" rides were much longer than Kaden's rides, so Grandma and Grandpa were kind enough to wait with him and ride lots of Kaden-rides so we could wait in ridiculously long lines and ride 4 rides.  It was worth it though!  There were even 2 rides that we all got to go on together, which was awesome!  On both of them though, we ended up getting soaked!  I love everyone's facial expressions in this picture from the log ride. 

(Also, check out the difference in my sister's arm and my brother's arm!  hahaha!  Yep, they're siblings from the same parents! Crazy!)
        Luckily for us, the original Buc-ees is on the way to San Antonio, so we got to stop there on the way and on the way back.  Love it!
        Sunday we all went to church together and then Kat, Chad, my mom and I all went through boxes of my Grandma's stuff.  It was fun to see so many things I remembered and then hear new stories and learn more about my Grandma. There was lots of laughter and tears, and it was an enjoyable experience.  It didn't take as long as we thought it would either!  That night we had dinner and visited and played a game.  Chris and I caught an early flight Monday morning to head back to Utah.  Another trip that was all too short, but really fun!  It's always a blast to get the whole family together and it was so nice that we got to celebrate my mom and all her hard work too!