Graduation Pictures

The Thomas Family with their guns up

Garth, his mom and Gigi

Garth and my mom

Garth and his mom

TTUHSC graduates 2009...look at all the seats of people who skipped out...crazy

Passing the time at the hooding ceremony (probably if we could all bend that way, we would have been doing the same thing

The happily graduated family

See how much fun I'm having mommy! Way to go Daddy!

Weeeeeeeeee're Baaaaack

And you know what that means, only a week or so of waiting for the actual posts from the trip. Hopefully I will download the pictures tonight and I want to blog about it before I forget everything. We had a great time. It truly was a magical time with our family. It was very sad to leave Daddy in Dallas for work, Garth Lee cried for about an hour while we waited for our plane. I can't wait to get everything together and blogged on here. Thanks to everyone for holding down the fort back home and to those of you who joined us, we can't wait to do it again!

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!

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.

Tagged...A little Late

My Pharmacy School friend Amanda tagged me a looooong time ago and I just saw it, so here goes:

4th picture in 4th file, no cheating:

Obviously bathtime. This was at a hotel at the Grand Canyon the summer of 2007, so Garth Lee was almost 3 then. We had a great time, I didn't want to cheat, so he looks like he has a foot coming out of his torso, so here is the next one in the file, eating shampoo:

And Less Than a Month Later...

This is us at 5 in the morning after a night of absolutely no sleep because of the water leak in our house the night before. Our flight was delayed over an hour and a half, so we were there VERY early! Thanks Kelton for getting up to take us to the airport at 4 something in the morning.

This was the view from our first room. The resort was right off of the entrance to the rainforest, so here was our rainforest view. No offense to the rainforest, but we really wanted an ocean view so we were able to switch rooms the next day.

This was the view from the room across the hall from our rainforest view room.

This is out the front entrance of the resort, the weather and the scenery were beautiful.

The view from our second room, we were right off the pool then if you look past it, you can see the surf. It was a really great place to be, the scenery was always changing.

Fort Del Morro

View of Cristobal from Morro.

The grounds of Cristobal, all I could think was how much fun Garth Lee would have running around in that field.

Entrance to Cristobal.

Garth really loved the weaponry, so here we are on a cannon at Cristobal.

I especially love that he is carrying my bag in this picture...so vogue!

More fortress views.

The day we went to the rainforest was the only day it rained, which I thought was pretty fitting, this picture shows the rain rolling in over us.

Orchids

More rain in the rainforest

The hike to the waterfall was considered "moderately difficult", I would say that was quite the understatement...here is Garth taking a break. My favorite quote from him that day while we were hiking came after I mentioned that I wish I would have brought a pedometer and he replied "Really? I wish I would have brought a cheeseburger."

Part of the "moderate" hike.

Our prize...it was truly breathtaking...and cold.

But we, of course, still had to get a little wet, it was great...and cold.

Marina Puerto Del Rey, where our snorkeling excursion began.

Cuelebrita Island, very very beautiful, crystal clear waters. This beach is accessible only by boat and it was absolutely gorgeous, this is where we went after our snorkeling excursion.

Look at that water...ahhhh.

More beautiful beachiness.

I thought this picture was kind of funny because here we are on a tropical island and with the cactus and rocks, it looks like I was taking a picture at Lake Allen Henry here in west Texas.

After a formidable hike to the shallows, we were rewarded with beautiful warm pools of water and we could watch the waves roll in through the rock formations, it was probably the most beautiful place we saw the entire trip, as usual the pictures definately do not do this place justice, it was incredible.

A dip in the rock pools.

Beachcombing along our miles of secluded beachfront off the resort.

Just about a quarter of a mile down from our resort was a river outlet. It was a pretty amazing sight. This is garth standing right were the river ends and the ocean begins.

Body surfing is what Garth had the most fun doing and he kept asking me to take pictures of him doing it, but they all ended up just pictures of him waiting for a wave or pictures of just a wave with him in it somewhere. So here is a picture of Garth in the ocean, just trust me that he was body surfing and that he got really good at it.

One of the pools at the resort, very refreshing.

Have a "Hoppy" Easter

Check out this website for a laugh: http://www.peepresearch.org/

The solubility testing is particularly interesting and the Medical Miracle section is hilarious!

The Luckiest Mom

Ok, ok, I know we have been back for almost a week now, but I still haven't been able to upload the pictures because I have been working since we got back, so I will blog about our trip when I get the pictures on the computer. But, we did have a great time. Anyways, I wanted to write this down before I forget about it because it was so special to me. As I have said before, without apology, I still lay down with Garth Lee for him to go to sleep at night and I LOVE IT. Two nights ago, as we were laying down, he was talking to me like he always does to keep himself awake for as long as he possibly can (and even though I am always telling him to stop talking so he can go to sleep, this is secretly my absolute favorite part of everyday). He had been quiet for a while so I thought he was asleep, then he turned over and put his hand on my cheek and told me that I was "the best mommy he has ever had". He told me that he was so glad that he was born in my tummy and that he was sorry that my tummy hurt when he was born, but he was just really excited to see me (you think maybe I watch too many baby shows on tv?) The last thing he said was "you are so good to me" and then he went to sleep. I don't know where they get the things they say sometimes, but sometimes it is just what you need to hear.

Oh, he also was making a mental list of things that started with the letter G on a different night. He realized that GiGi has 2 G's and he said "but when PawPaw talks to GiGi, he calls her July", then he giggles because he is sooooo proud of his clever joke, her name is June. I thought it was pretty cute and clever too.

Excuses Needed

So I have hit a major stall on the weight-loss front and I still have about 15-20 pounds to go and I know that I need to up the exercise to get there. I used to roll my eyes so hard you could hear it when people would talk about their "last 5 or 10 pounds" and how they were the hardest to lose. I officially take those eye rolls back. Last week, I really want(ed) to start running. Not because I want to run, mind you, but because I want to look like a runner. So, I was going to start last week, but my MP3 player was dead, then we had a cold front blow in, and so on. Today it was 85 degrees and tomorrow it will get up to 88 degrees and my MP3 player has been charging for over a week now. So, I am officially out of excuses and I need some more, so bring them on or I am actually going to have to do this thing...please, please don't let that happen.

Oh and by the way, yes that is totally me in the picture, they really should have asked before using it...dang paparazzi.

A Jim Gaffigan quote does come to mind when looking at this picture: "I saw this chick at the gym the other day and you could see her ribs. All I could think was, 'man, I haven't had a McRib in forever.'"