Thursday, May 21, 2009

Congratulations!

I am so happy to announce the graduation of my wonderful husband. Like I always do, I will have to post pictures later because they are still being held captive on the camera. The Friday before graduation was the hooding ceremony. They have also added a new alumni banquet to the list of festivities since my graduation and that was pretty fun too. The hooding was very emotional, until it got the the slide show presentation and while we had all been waiting for hours through banquet and speeches and the hooding of his entire class, it got to him and whoever put the slide show together did not put one of the pictures that we sent into the slide show, it had Garth's school picture and a big picture of the health sciences center on it...what a rip off. It made me madder than it should have, but it really kind of sucked. Oh well. After the hooding, I had to run to work (since I had been paged 5 times during Garth's festivities) and so I took my mom with me and she got to see a little of what I do, then we went to a reception in the club seats at the stadium and it was pretty great. The food was good and unfortunately the view was really good, so Garth was already picking out our $30,000 football seats. Saturday was the actual graduation and it went flawlessly, Garth's brothers both made it to see their big brother receive his Doctor of Pharmacy degree. It was pretty moving. I seriously cannot believe that we are here, finished, done.

Thinking back, we have never been together when we were not in school full time. NEVER. When we started dating, I was a Freshman in college and we were engaged for both of our Sophomore years of school. We both worked full time and went to school full time for 3 years while we were finishing up school at Tech before we moved to Amarillo for my first year of Pharmacy School. When I started in Amarillo, I stopped working full time and I was just going to school full time, but Garth finished his studies at WT and worked full time too so we could pay the bills. When he got into Pharmacy School the following year, he started school full time and 'only' worked part-time (slacker), oh and he also became a dad that year. Since then, he has always worked at least part time while getting through a doctorate program to support his family. We may have had some bumps in the road, but we got here and we are so happy to be here. This Tuesday, I was working at CVS and so was Garth and I kind of got choked up a little thinking about how in the 9 years we have been together, 8 of them married, this was the first day that we were both working full-time jobs that were not interim, or intern, or tech jobs, that neither of us had to run to class after this, that we were both making a paycheck. It was a pretty amazing thought. We have worked hard to get here, so now all he has to do is pass the boards, then I quit ;) Kidding...sort of.

Anyways, congrats to my husband. Even though he doesn't even know what a blog is and he will most likely never read these words, I know he knows how proud of him that I am and how grateful we are to have such a loving father and husband in our home to protect us and to provide for us. Thanks for all the work you have done for us, and I hope that the $400 football tickets are enough for this year, and maybe next year I will let you even get a seat with a back on it. Love you forever!

Thursday, May 7, 2009

More Garth Leeisms

Although I haven't had much blogworthy happen lately, there have been a few cute things that I would like to record for my posterity:

#1: My parents save aluminum cans and they have for as long as I can remember. They are not environmentalists, mind you, I think it has continued out of habit since I went on a save the earth kick in the fourth grade. They also drive an 8 mpg "shaggin' wagon" just to even things out. Anyways, you can get more cans in a bag if they are crushed, something I 'joyfully' did as a youngster and that my son apparently enjoys now. My dad walked up on him with a can in the crusher just as he asked the can "Any last words?", I swear the can let out a whimper.

#2: The other day we were sitting together having dinner as a family, which is sadly a rarity for us. I was eating some veggies with ranch dip and I wanted Garth Lee to try the broccoli. We talked to him about how he needs to eat his veggies to grow big and strong, and the rest of the conversation went something like this:

Garth Lee: "Don't worry mommy, I am going to grow up straight, not fat like you and daddy."
Me: "But mommy isn't fat anymore, is she?"
Garth Lee: "Ummm, yeah, you are still a little fat."
Me: "Where am I still fat, I thought I was not fat anymore."
Garth Lee: "Sorry mommy, but you are still a little fat, kind of everywhere, but don't worry, I will stay straight, not fat."
Me: "But daddy is a lot fatter than mommy, right." (Classy, I know)
Garth Lee: "I'm sorry mommy, daddy is only a little fatter, it's OK mommy, you are just still a little fat, but I still love you."
Me: "I love you too." (but I loved you more 15 minutes ago)

Yes, we still had the people come in all shapes, sizes and colors discussion, this was just the best part of it. He was seriously not trying to be mean at all, he was just being very honest and serious. I also like that the opposite of 'fat' to him is 'straight'. I guess it isn't so bad to not be 'straight' I just wish there was an in between...well I guess I am just a little fat, I can take that.

#3: My mom took Garth Lee shopping this week and he wanted to get me something for Mother's Day. When he came home, he told me "We do NOT have anything in the car for you, BUT if we do, you are not getting it until St. Mommy's Day." Gosh, I hope that is sometime close to Mother's Day.

I love my little boy. It makes me sad to see him growing up. It wasn't that long ago when I was just hoping and praying he would sleep through the night. I love to see him change and grow, but I do still mourn the baby I had that is now my little boy.