One Week Closer

Last Monday I had a test hair appointment with Sarah Hays and I'm so excited for her to do my wedding hair. She cut my hair this weekend and did an AMAZING job. Love it. I was also able to hang out with Laura Morrissette on Tuesday and chat about "life" stuff and things leading up to the wedding. Her baby girl is doing well and may get to come home in the next few weeks. I love my tutoring family in Westlake that I meet with every Wednesday. One of the kids showed me this (he's super smart) and it's pretty darn cool: Star Size Comparison

Michael came to Simi Thursday night so that we could get the marriage license on Friday. We also replaced the front brakes on his car with a local specialist my dad likes, and then Mom and Dad Burr met up with us and my parents for my CLU graduation in the evening. Usually I don't look forward to the monotony of graduation ceremonies, especially being herded around in them, but this one was fun and relatively inspiring, and brought a good close to my CLU experience. When Jack O'Connell spoke, no one in my department had much of anything good to say about him, though he gave an inspiring speech. The doctorate speaker's message was quite opinionated and somewhat inappropriate, devaluing the profession of teaching and how its degeneration is reflected in everything (when throughout the program we were inspired the exact opposite way). Then some ducks flew overhead, quacking loudly, and someone made the gun sound from Duck Hunt and a few people chuckled... so I made the dog sound where he laughs that you've missed, and a bunch of people laughed, so I had my fun moment. I'll miss the small classes and community with awesome professors, a peaceful and welcoming campus, and I've learned SO much about teaching and being a lifelong learner. All of my decisions and failures and successes have led me to this point and I'm grateful for my parents and God for helping me get here.

After the ceremony, we all went to my family's house and had yummy Chinese food and chatted for a few hours. It's so awesome to see Mike's Dad and Terri and my parents have so much common ground and interests and get along so well, it was a fun night and I'm so glad they were excited to come.

This Sunday was our last in the YSA ward since next weekend I'll be moving the last of my furniture to Orange County. I bore my testimony and had fun chatting with the girls, got a blessing from Bishop which I can already feel a difference from, and loved sitting in church with Michael. We miss our soon-to-be family ward and look forward to seeing them soon. This week is my last week of work and now I start to finalize every wedding detail... woohoo! I also have a job interview on Friday, which I'm super stoked for.

Masters and Mother's Day

Michael

Work work work, and more work! haha. Things are looking good, he was asked by the CEO to apply for an Associate Producer position, so we'll see where it goes! Over the past week or two he promoted the Freaky Pets giveaway on Facebook and the page grew from about 200 fans to over 2000 - talk about jackpot. Moms with blogs/Facebooks are a goldmine when it comes to marketing kids products. This weekend he also worked on our website and worked on preparing the apartment for when I move in, making it less of a bachelor pad ;)

Kelly

Last week was state testing week for the boys I teach, so I got paid to take them to Ventura and sit on the beach while they were testing. Not a bad deal, in case you were wondering.
On Friday I was so nervous for my Masters colloquium, I went home from work and watched tv to distract myself. Luckily 'House' was on so my mind was entertained. I was under the impression that we'd present our posters to a panel that was going to walk around to each person and ask us questions - but nope! What a relief - it was open to anyone that came for them to walk around and casually ask questions, get some snacks, and we saw everyone else's projects too. It was crazy how I kept reformatting my paper to fit the correct APA standards, and yet when I checked out other students' projects and saw how badly they ignored the rules, it made me feel better about any flaws my paper had that I couldn't find after looking over it fifty times. I turned that sucker in and ta-da! I'm done! I can hardly believe it. Now I'm letting my mind more fully engulf everything wedding-related and enjoy it. Mother's day weekend was also awesome. I love my mom a ton and enjoyed relaxing with her. We also tried on our dresses for the wedding just for fun and to see how they fit. Mom is so cute and she doesn't give herself enough credit.

Colloquium poster

The finished product! A year of hard work

Dedication to my parents

Thickness!

Week-end

I just showed my parents my cap and gown and they made me put it on and take pictures just now, haha. I'm excited to be done with the Masters too. It's been a growing few years.