Noteworthy Things of Late, in no Particular Order

Some of these have already been lightly covered on the blog, but just to make it official...
1. I graduated with a Masters in Education and licensure in school counseling. And I have a job for next year. BLESSINGS ABOUND, people. I graduated with no student loans - even though I don't have residency in Utah - through a legitimate miracle. Said miracle required that I work 50 hours a week and go to school full-time this year, and despite of it all, I still feel like I was able to do a lot of fun/social/outdoorsy things and that my life had balance. I give all the credit to Heavenly Father. He is so super good to me.

My family came for graduation. The whole thing went very smoothly except for when I locked my keys in my car an hour before graduation started, when I sat in my chair in the auditorium and a huge metal bar fell off the bottom of it, and when my uncle went to the Macaroni Grill in Provo instead of Sandy.

2. I got to spend all of the following Saturday with my mom and Grandma Jones. We drove around from the Great Salt Lake to Temple Square to Provo to Snowbird taking pics of Flat Stanley. Along the way we saw a billboard for Mesquite which somehow led to us making up our own fake billboard slogans. Mine was, "If you liked hell, you'll love Mesquite!" which makes perfect sense if you know how I feel about Nevada. (Which reminds me of the time my friend Curt and I drove across Nevada and played a similar slogan game which resulted in, "Nevada, how I loathe thee," courtesy of Curt.)

3. Last weekend we went to North Carolina for my nephew Nate's baptism and my new baby niece Caroline's blessing (FYI, Caroline has a long 'i', like in "Carolina." It's twenty times more adorable that way.) I made great progress in becoming Caroline's favorite aunt, which hopefully will be cemented this weekend when I babysit ALL FOUR OF THE CHILDREN while Scott and Lex are at her brother's wedding.

But the baptism was inspiring, the blessing was beautiful, nephews/niece are as adorable as ever, and I love my family wholeheartedly. Also North Carolina. I would like to someday live there. I realized when I got off the plane that it felt like home (considering that I've sort of lived there twice). I like that feeling and wish to pursue it more someday.

While we were there, Grant performed a song on the guitar that he wrote about the beach. Afterwards, he said, "My next song is going to be called, 'Oh, Bummer.'" Scott determined that he was well on his way to becoming a country music star.

4. And I got to see Cari in Raleigh! We went to the Duke Gardens and Duke Chapel.

5. I don't mean to be repetitive, but Caroline is so super cute. Just look at that face.

6. This:

7.  I think that's everything.