An Adult

John has recently reached a two pretty big milestones in his life. First, an end to his 20s. Yikes, how did time go by that fast?

Chocolate-Raspberry Cheesecake. Best. Dessert. Ever.

AND John finished his career as a student. Going from being a student almost your entire life to an employee is a pretty big change for him. Also, he is going to insist on being called Dr. from now on...just kidding. :)

We celebrated the night he finished his dissertation defense with yummy fresh caprese salad. Delicious! Although, I do not think our girls were as impressed with the dish as we were.

Congratulations John on officially becoming an adult! ;) I am so proud of you!

From my journal: The next week was John's birthday. I made him copycat Cafe Rio salads and Raspberry Chocolate cheesecake for dessert. The big 3-0. I tried to make it fun for him, but I didn't go all out because I had a surprise birthday/graduation party planned for later. 

The next week we went to a Brandon Sanderson book signing. He is our favorite author! It was so fun to see him and get our book personalized, even if we didn't really know what to say. Later that week Matt came over and we went to a Choral Showcase at BYU. It was really fun! That Saturday was the surprise party for John that turned out pretty good. My dad, grandparents, and David and Patti's family came. Also, Glenn and Andrea, the Guinns and the Pearsons were there. It was really nice, and John's mom had him walk for all of his degrees. :) We bought pizza and people brought sides. 

That week we went up to the Armstrong's house and had a nice dinner with McKenzie. We had a nice evening with her. We spent a lot of time with people before we moved. It was so worth it. It made us sad to realize how many people are in our lives that we won't see very much any more. We also made a trip to Ogden to get some family photos of our family. We had dinner with David and Patti that night, and it was surprisingly relaxing and fun.

Then Thursday was John's dissertation defense that went super smoothly. Woohoo! Dr. Pearson!

Camping

In September we went on our only camping trip of the year. It was a little over night camp trip with our friends, the Guinns, up American Fork Canyon. We have been friends with these guys almost our whole married lives and have loved having kids at similar times. Of course, there was some drama getting a camping spot, but it was a really fun little overnighter. We stayed up late talking and laughing. We even told scary stories with the kids. We also learned that vegan hot dogs are gross.

All of the fall leaves were beautiful. The weather was nice. The children were all pretty good. The adults stayed up late around the campfire. And we did a little hike in the morning. Perfect recipe for a nice camping trip.

BYU vs. Texas

At the beginning of September we went to the BYU vs. Texas football game. We hadn't been to one for a while despite being BYU students and big fans of BYU football. My grandparents used to be season ticket holders, but hadn't been to a game for a long time because of the difficultly driving down to Provo, often late at night. Since we lived close by and Frontrunner was built, Grandma decided to go to one last game before we moved and couldn't pick them up from the train station. So we decided to have one last hurrah before moving and go with them. We bought limited accessibility tickets because my grandpa has a hard time getting around, but the upside is that we had awesome seats! Super close to the field!

My mom came down too and watched the girls while we went with Grandma and Grandpa to the game. The game was supposed to start at 4, but didn't start for about two hours later because of a crazy storm that rained it out. Fortunately my grandparents had ponchos for the rain and John and I put clean garbage bags over us. It really helped us stay warm. We stayed under the bleachers during the rain, and really didn't get wet. It was crazy to see how much rain was pouring down.

Eventually the game started though, and what a fun game! BYU wasn't supposed to win this game because Texas was ranked number 15. BYU had just lost a game they were supposed to win against Virginia. So when John saw that this was the only home game we could make it to, we went into it planning on watching BYU lose. Surprisingly that didn't happen. BYU was ahead the whole game, and it ended BYU winning 40 to 21. Woohoo! So fun!

We were actually on the jumbo screen twice during the game too. The first time we were just on it for a second at the end of a pan across the crowd. The other time was during the "Hey, hey baby. I wanna know if you'll be my girl..." song. It was just on me and John for a few seconds. I was just smiling and waving and totally missed it when John tried to kiss me for the camera. Oops! One of John's coworkers was apparently at the game and commented on how I gave him the cheek. How embarrassing! :) 

We got home that night to find out that the power had been out at our apartment almost the entire time we were gone. I felt so bad for my mom--being at someone else's house taking care of their children with no idea of where the flashlights were. I wish she would have called and asked. I guess Ellie found my mom her toy wind up flashlight. :( The power was still out the next morning and didn't turn on until 9 am. It seemed crazy long! We miss BYU already!