Emily's Graduation

 Saturday was Emily's graduation ceremony.  Even though she finished her school at the end of 2011, they hold the ceremony for everyone in May.  Emily graduated with High Honors from Provo College in the field of Medical Assistant.  Yeah Em!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 We are so happy for her and applaud Em for her hard work and determination.   It isn't easy to be a wife and a Mommy, to work, and to go to college too.  Not only did Emily already have Tal, but she also gave birth via c-section to Jakob during the semester and had to go back to school as soon as she got out of the hospital.  And so, we give her a lot of credit.  She has accomplished A Lot!

We tried to help her out as much as we could by taking care of the babies so that she would be free to go to school and to study.  We loved watching the babies.

 She always says that she's a Daddy's girl and here she is with her Dad.

 Andrea has been a great support to her too.  While we were on our mission, Andrea and Yoho invited her and Tal to live with them.  They helped her out a lot.  I think it was especially nice and considerate of a young, newly married couple to ask a sister to come and live with them.

 Jose has been a very supportive and loving husband.  He works hard and then came home to take over the care of the kids so that she could go to school. he always had dinner waiting for her when she came home from work too.  Baby Jakob loved the balloons that Jose got.  When the ceremony began, one of the balloons somehow escaped and flew up, exploded and the balloon, empty of air, came fizzing back down.  Luckily it didn't go up into the rafters and get stuck and cause a problem.

 Jose also brought her some beautiful roses.

 We loved having Tal sit with us.  She was such a good girl, but she was hungry.  Fortunately I brought her some fruit snacks, cheese and crackers, and I also found half a granola bar in my purse.  Andrea had a juice box for her too.  She must be in a little growth spurt because she usually doesn't like to eat that much.

 Each school within the college chose a speaker.  Some of the speeches were very good.  One student told about how he never thought much of himself.  He quit high school at the young age of 16 and lived a "not so good life".  He did lots of things that were not right.  Finally ten years later with the encouragement of his wife and family, he decided to go back to school.  He said that he never believed he could be anybody, but that now he was somebody and in fact now he could live a "real life".  He graduated and is now a Pharmacy Tech.  He was so grateful to everyone that helped and encouraged him.  One young woman spoke about how she was always in trouble.  She never expected to have a good life, but with encouragement and lots of hard work, she gave up doing things that were bringing her down and now she will be able to have a good job because she has graduated.   These young people deserve a lot of credit.  It's not easy to change your life.  But, it can be done with hard work, determination, and lots of effort.

 Emily looked beautiful.  I think she must be so happy with herself.  She DID IT!

 Tal was lucky enough to get not one, but two suckers from Andrea.

 It was so nice and supportive of Sierra to come too.

 After the ceremony we went to Texas Roadhouse for a celebratory lunch.