Belated, But Still Deserving

So a good seven months ago, Ryan graduated with his Bachelors in Community and Public Health. Unfortunately, UVU only has one Commencement/walking ceremony and that's in April. Truth be told, Ryan really didn't care about the whole walking thing, but after much persuasion and threatening, he agreed to do it. One day Ryan and I both had the same thought, "I wonder when we are supposed to sign up to walk..."

Yeah, the deadline had already come and gone. Oops. We did not wait until it was too late on purpose. Life just got busy and really, once you are out of school, it's not the first thing on your mind any more. We hoped that the month of April would slip by and no one would notice, but sure enough, my mom was talking to Ryan one day and said that she had realized that it was graduation time and wondered why she wasn't attending a ceremony for him. Uh...

Well, official ceremony or not, it was still time to celebrate.

Luckily, Ryan had several cousins graduate at the same time, and ironically, I think only one of them ended up walking. But we were able to borrow the cap, gown, and sash for pictures. The only thing that isn't right is the tassel. His cousin graduated from UVU, but from a different dept, so their tassel was orange. I still had mine from a few years ago that was white that would have worked better, but I was concerned about the year being wrong. In retrospect that was pretty silly because it's not like you can see the year on the tassel anyway.

We took pictures in his parents backyard and down by the wolverine at UVU before going out to eat at Mi Ranchito - our favorite. (Sadly it was during this outing that I lost my lunch for the first time, courtesy of being newly preggo.)

A few days later my parents hosted the official graduation party. We had an arch set up with yellow and green balloons for pictures and everything. My mom wanted people to come in green or yellow, but apparently that was going a little too far for my BYU-true dad. :) That's okay Dad, BYU has much better sports anyway. (Sorry UVU!)

Of course we had to have fun for picture time. I can honestly say I never felt this way (see below) during the course of Ryan's schooling. He was an amazing student who worked his little heiny off. The most I ever did was read a few papers and say a lot of prayers. But what else are you supposed to do with a sash that's just hanging there?

Don't worry. We are still madly in love.

We had a great Costco chocoloate cake and German food for dinner. Yummy!

We had a great time celebrating. I summed up what I remembered from my Commencement a few years ago for Ryan... "Pretty much you are awesome for graduating and the world is yours for the taking. Ra! Ra! Ra!" (Honestly, the commencement part of things is pretty fun just because it really does make you feel special. ;) And it's cool to hear your name read out as you walk across the stage and all that.) However, we threw a pretty dang good party either way.

So besides the fact that I needed to post this anyway because Ryan is awesome... there is more news worth celebrating!

Ryan just recently took his big hairy Environmental Health Specialist exam that he was training for while doing his internship at the health dept last fall. He passed!!!!!! Yaaahhoooo!!!!!

I am so proud of him! It was not an easy test and he studied and prepared for months to take it. We had to wait about 4 weeks for NEHA (National Environmental Health Association) to send us the official letter and certificate in the mail and it arrived this last week. He is now an official Registered Environmental Health Specialist/Registered Sanitarian. Long name, I know. Basically he is now qualified/certified to do health and safety inspections and things along that line. Hopefully with a real credential ID number with can slap on a resume we will be able to find a job in his field and put all that great education to good use! (Not saying he hasn't used it... It would just be great to get paid for that knowledge.)

I really can't say just how proud of him I am. He has worked so hard! He really is amazing. I love him so much. He is my best friend and I will happily follow him where ever life decides to take us!