Graduation Day!

I cannot believe that we finally got to walk across that stage and take home our fancy pieces of paper! :)

After I walked across the stage and sat down the first thing I did was check to make sure that I had a real diploma in my tube...don't worry, I did :)

How awesome to get to graduate with your husband and your best friend?!? Seriously.

One of the perks of graduating the same day as your spouse and getting degrees from the same department was that I got to sit with Brad at graduation (though we almost didn't get to...we were one person away from being split by a new row!)...we spent our sitting time text messaging family, trying to talk to MAM (she was a couple of rows back), talking to the guy that sat on the other side of me, and being so happy that we were finally graduating!

The ceremony wasn't too long (maybe two hours?) since we didn't really have a speaker and the people that did speak were quick.

I wore my contacts that really aren't made for my eyes... so I could only see part of the time. I actually couldn't see when I was walking across the stage...I was just praying that I wouldn't trip and fall! It was rough after the ceremony because all the professors line up and the students can walk through and hug them...I couldn't see enough to notice which teachers were mine (they weren't separated by departments...they were all mixed up) but luckily I was able to follow after Brad and I don't think I missed any of my favorite teachers. I am going to miss them! I have spent a lot of hours in their classes!!

Afterwards we tried to find our supporters quickly but it took us a while...thank God for cell phones! We took a few pictures outside of the Expo before it started drizzling.

Then we headed to Texas Roadhouse to have lunch. There were 20 people in our party...Mom & Dad {both sets}, Granny, Val, Alicia, Daniel, Amanda, Dave, Vicki, Perez, Uncle Ronnie, Aunt Nelwyn, MAM, MAM's bro Ross, MAM's parents, & me and Brad!

We enjoyed throwing peanuts at each other...my mother-in-law, Linda, continues to find peanuts in her purse from the crossfire...needless to say, we had a wonderful celebration lunch.

After we ate, Brad and I headed over to UMHB to take pics with MAM and her family. So glad we got some pictures on campus!!

The picture of us by the sign is the front of the building that we "lived in" for the last three years. Literally we had all of our classes there for the last 4 semesters (sometimes we even had three out of four classes in the same classroom!).

After some picture taking we headed home where our family was waiting for us.

A Red Velvet Cake from the most wonderful bakery was waiting for us along with a table full of wonderful presents.

Also on the table was this little piece of genious...

We had an absolute blast singing pop songs and following along with the words on the screen.

The song list includes...3 Doors Down -- Kryptonite A-Ha -- Take On Me Alicia Keys -- Fallin' All American Rejects -- Move Along Ashlee Simpson -- Invisible Avril Lavigne -- Sk8er Boi Blue October -- Hate Me Britney Spears -- One more time Cartel -- Honestly Cyndi Lauper -- Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Daniel Powter -- Bad Day Destiny's Child -- Survivor Franz Ferdinand -- Take Me Out Gorillaz -- Feel Good, Inc. Hinder -- Lips of an Angel Hoobastank -- The Reason James Blunt -- You're Beautiful Jesse McCartney -- Beautiful Soul Lifehouse -- Hanging By A Moment My Chemical Romance -- Helena Natasha Bedingfield -- These Words Panic! At the Disco -- I Write Sins, Not Tragedies Rihanna -- SOS Ryan Cabrera -- On The Way Down Snow Patrol -- Chasing Cars The Clash -- Should I Stay or Should I go The Fray -- Over My Head The Raconteurs -- Steady, As She Goes U2 -- Vertigo Whitney Houston -- I Wanna Dance With Somebody

You can make teams and have the game decide who sings which songs...there are one-on-one battles, duets, and more. Each team has a certain number of song skips.

I have not laughed so hard in a loooong time!! I highly recommend this game! It rocks! A BIG THANKS to Vick for buying it!! I think it is well worth the money!

It is a huge improvement from the "karaoking" that mom and I used to do back in the day with a CD, the CD book, and a cheap microphone we bought.

We are anticipating singing the country version once we find it...ohh...good times!

A little secret was uncovered during the party...MAM rocks SingStar. Vicki calls her the "silent killer" because you can't hear her sing but she always gets good marks (Cool! Cool! Cool!)...I knew she was a good singer but for real!

One of my favorite parts of the evening...

when MAM called my phone Brad picked it up (because I was singing) and said, "I can't talk right now because I'm about to sing Brittney Spears. Just come on over!"

LOL! :) Not only did he sing "Baby One More Time" by Brittney Spears, he was good at it! Gotta love my Bradley!! :)

It was quite a lovely party and a really awesome day in general. I don't think I will fully believe that we are college graduates until school starts back up in August and we don't go!

So... we finally did it. It took us 6 whole years without taking any semesters off and always taking at least 12 hours (except for maybe one semester when I could only take 9)...but...we finally got our degrees.

I remember sitting in my Fundamentals of Management class in the Fall of 2004...the professor (who was also my advisor) told us to use Play-Doh to make anything that came to mind...

I made a little Play-Doh Brad and Lacey with diplomas in their hands...It is hard to believe we have them now!

A big thanks to everyone who made our day so special. We love you all! Everyone has been so generous and we love all of our gifts!!

{Side note: I sent out thank you notes and received three thank you notes for the thank you notes, lol :) I bet the USPS loves us!!}

BVOTD: "Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." James 1:4 NIV