Graduation/Birthday/Easter

This post is a bit late - just haven't had time to upload the pictures yet.  But anyway...

Friday, April 22nd was my 25th birthday, my sister-in-law's graduation from BYU, and the beginning of Easter weekend.  Here's the recap of it:

Friday - John and I took off work for Sonya's graduation from BYU (graduated with her MBA) and my birthday.  We woke up early to get down to Provo and in our seats by 8 o'clock for the ceremony.  We surprisingly made it just in time :)  We are so proud of her and so glad that we were able to be there to support her.  She started the MBA program when John and I first met and started dating - can't believe that was a little less than 2 years ago.

John with his sister Sonya and brother James

Brooklyn and I, John, Sonya, Betty, Marc, and James

After the ceremony, pictures, and a reception we headed to John's aunt and uncles house so I could feed Brooklyn and to wait for our reservation at Tucanos.  All I can say is yum!  I was starving and ate and ate and ate.  And ate some more!  It was so good.  The waitress/waitresses came around with their drums and had those of us celebrating, me (birthday), Sonya (graduation), Curtis (wedding anniversary...Heather had left at this point to get to a Kindergarten party) "shake it" while they played a song.  We headed over to Heather and Curtis's house.  John played with our nephew Luke and Brooklyn and I crashed in their lounge chair - it was the best nap I've had in a long time.  Around 6 o'clock we went over to Raf and Claudia's house, picked up some Paradise Bakery Cafe, and ate at their house.  Ryan, Mandy, and Clover came over shortly after for cake, ice cream, and games.  It was a great night and I couldn't have asked more for my birthday - to spend time with my family and friends.  We finally got home around 10:45 that night and we were all pooped.  Brooklyn was a trooper all day and slept 11 hours that night.

(These pictures are actually from Thursday night - John's parents picked up James and Luke from the airport, who flew in from Texas to surprise Sonya, and picked up some Chinese food for my birthday and brought it over)

The flowers John surprised me with - a dozen red roses (my favorite) and the pink one symbolized the very first flower John ever gave me (on our 3rd date)

Our cute nephew Luke

Saturday - We slept in a bit.  I went to work (made up for the day I took off) and got home around 4:30.  I was able to get the Sorensons/Mortensens tickets to the Bee's game.  We had great seats and it was fun (they even put that it was my birthday on the scoreboard....although the office made it a joke and put Happy 30th Birthday....not quite yet!).  It was a lot colder then I thought it would be so we didn't end up staying for the whole game or for the fireworks after.  It makes me excited for the summer and to go to more games.

 Brooklyn and Sonya

 Emily and Lindsey

 Rich and Misty and my mom - who flew in from Russia just for my birthday ....... (ok, not really - more like to help my sister who had her baby 6 1/2 weeks early...but I like to think it was for my birthday)

about half of the gang

Sunday - John put together Brooklyn's Easter toy = an exersaucer.  I actually bought this before she was born but decided to give it to her now because there isn't a holiday coming up before Christmas..and she'll definitely fit in it before then.  She is a little too short for her right now, but she still seems to love playing in it.  I also bought her an Easter dress, that matched my sister's kids outfits, and little white sandel shoes.  She looked pretty darn cute (forgot to take a picture though).

(I was planning on doing a small Easter basket for John and I and bought a few bags of candy a couple weeks before...but they didn't last long.  We ate them all, with Easter still a week away.  I didn't think it was a good idea to go buy more.  Maybe next year I'll just buy one bag and get it the day before).

After church we headed to my sister's house for Easter dinner/my birthday dinner.  My mom, who was still in town from Russia, made the majority of the meal and it was delicious.

It was a fun weekend spent together as a family.  I was exhausted Monday morning when I woke up early for work, but it was all worth it.