Starting grad school + trip to LA!

Posted by Laura Neuffer May 18, 2014

Starting grad school + trip to LA!

We're writing from the LA airport today, waiting for our flight home - Ellen graduated from USC on Friday and we went down to celebrate!

More on that in a sek! We have a lot of catching up to do :) Life has shifted into a higher gear now that my grad school has started, and even through it's been rigorous from the get-go, and school work has officially filled in all the gaps in my schedule, I'm actually really enjoying it! I wrote all about the program HERE.

The program is set up amazingly well using brand new technology and has exceeded all of my expectations. It's an online progarm which allows me to continue working FULL time (I know, crazy!) and have a personal life in addition to teaching yoga a couple times a week. I love the challenge! It also allows us to be flexible on location since we'll be moving away in just under a year, when I'll be mid-way through the program. I graduate in December 2015!! (wait, too early to be thinking about that!)

My new school work inspired us to start a tradition of going to the BYU library every night. It's helpful having it so close by. :)

Matt also has strudying to do - he's taking a summer class in addition to working on campus and preparing for LDAC, a month-long army evaluation he'll be doing at Fort Knox this summer. It's a big deal because it has a determining effect on what he'll do in the army after graduation, so there's a lot for him to do before he goes!

He's also been having fun planning our Christmas trip (the one we needed our passports for - details to come ((when we figure them all out!!))

Barkley and I have been keeping up with running - increasing our milage every week. He's a trooper and a great adventure buddy! One month until the marathon. Feet, don't fail me now!

The day my USC running shirt arrived!
Ellen has it now, Sisterhood-of-the-Traveling-Pants style.

On a training run!
When Barkley releases an album or publishes a book,
this will be the cover photo.

So obviously we were a little busy and the trip to LA snuck up on us :)

On Thursday night after dropping Barkley at an adorable boarding facility called Sydney's Bed and Biscut (!) Matt and I headed to Salt Lake International to catch a plane to CA! :)

We got in late, and bright and early the next morning we all headed to USC for the main event!

Graduation!!

Second from last

While we were waiting for the ceremony to start went to the Trojan store for fun:

And then got back to see Pookie walk!!

After graduation was a nice reception for her school and LOTS of pictures :)

just missing Sarah!

Our family friend Bill even came to celebrate! :)

Making sure they were perfect

It was a lovely - but totally exhausting! - morning! It got up to about 100 degrees in SoCal this weekend so after pictures and walking around campus we went home to freshen up and relax. A few hours later STACY came over! :D

Everyone loves Stacy, so she came with us to Ellen's grad dinner in Santa Monica. :)

After din we headed to the beach! We took a round-about way that turned into a funny little adventure, but we made it. :)

The next day was breakfast out….

Walking around Third Street Promenade and a farmers' market...

The beach by Santa Monica Pier...

Which included an impromptu stop to buy shorts so I could get in!

Kittens!

And playing with Stacy and Matt at the beach!!

They actually splashed / draged / tackled me ino the water until I was soaking wet and then it turned out to be THE MOST fun I've had in a long time :D That's what friends are for!

We watched the sunset from INSIDE the ocean and it was perfect :)

It was a great trip!! We're so glad we could come celebrate Ellen's graduation and see everyone! It was also really good to be at USC as a STUDENT for the first time ever :D

To wrap it up, who's ready for THE REST OF THE MONTH IN SIX WORDS OR LESS? :) Here we go!

We celebrated our ONE YEAR anniversary!