It's the time of the Season for... graduation!

My wife had been acting kind of strange over the past few weeks.

It is not necessarily out of the ordinary for her to experience unannounced mood shifts. Unforeseeable, though these may be in that regard, I am usually able to preemptively anticipate the direction of her dispositional oscillation... be it desirable or non... and strategize my activities accordingly. I have been married to her for nearly 8 years now, you know. I've grown quite accustomed to gauging the emotional and/or psychological vibes she is prone to emitting. That is, until a few weeks ago.

There were little things that, in retrospect, should have been a red flag telling me something was amiss. Little nuances that were somewhat uncharacteristic for my little sweetheart.

I had started to list these nuances, but it wasn't nearly as entertaining as I had hoped. So, I'll just tell you about my day yesterday. (That renders the entire introduction as a complete was of time and space, doesn't it?)

We woke up a little late that day. Our kids are usually up somewhere between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m. Ironic, in a way, that the day we had somewhere to be they would sleep in until 8:00. We were supposed to be at the Bountiful temple at 9:30 for Sara taking out her endowments. It was snowing too... again. We quickly dressed and hurried to the temple.

All went well with the temple. My baby sister is now wearing garments and will be married in one weeks time. That in and of itself is baffling to me.

Typically, after a special occasion like that one is prone to commemorate with some sort of meal or dessert (especially us Mormons). I was very sad to discover, however, that my family had no such plans. So we got the kids and went home for nap time. I ended up taking a nice long nap myself while my wife busied herself in the kitchen.

We had a special date night planned that night because, in fact, it was my graduation day. I didn't go back to Portland for graduation so Challene wanted to make a special day for me. Among all the other nice things we did, we decided to go out to dinner and then back home to watch The Dark Night. Colleen was to be watching the kids because BreAnna and Justin had a job to do that night.

I wanted to go to Tepanyaki for dinner, but we discovered that there was to be a 25-35 minute wait. I didn't think that was to bad, but Challene nearly insisted that we just go to the Braza Grill instead. I'm a fan of all things Brazilian, so I obliged. We had a delicious and highly over-priced meal there. During dinner I duly noted the fact that Challene filled up unnaturally fast and also spent unnatural amounts of time in the bathroom. Who am I to jump to conclusions, though. Perhaps she was having gastrointestinal issues.

After a quick, but expensive meal (their lunches are more reasonably priced, though) and an extended bathroom break, Challene announced her craving for Mint Oreos and suggested we get some for the movie. Again, this struck me as somewhat odd, particularly in light of our conversation about trying to eat better not a few days ago. But, again I obliged.

Macy's is expensive too!

Finally, we headed home. As I pulled into the driveway, I noticed a newly purchased late model silver Honda Pilot parked just passed our home. That registered as somewhat ironic since Mike and Katie had just purchased one of those. Then I noticed the green Dodge Durango in front of the Pilot. One just like the one Dave and Michelle drive. I turned to Challene and asked, "Is that Mike's Pilot?" "No," she lied, "Why would that be Mike's Pilot?"

We pulled in and closed the garage door. I knew something was up, and in my distracted state I raked the sharp corner of the car door across the back of my knee. Distracted again, but this time by pain, I went in the door. What was my surprise when I heard the absurdly loud explosion of novelty poppers and a boisterous "Surprise!!!"


So, there I am. All thoughts of my aching leg long gone. Everything clicked. All Challene's quirks over the last few weeks, insisting on having the house immaculate, insisting that the dusting of snow be shoveled before we left the house, Tepanyaki, the mint Oreos. Lying about Mike's Pilot and Justin and BreAnna working that night. It all came together in a single agglomeration of "duh"ness. The house was packed with family and friends. There was food galore and an incredible assortment of alcohol-free beverages. It was a true party in the most literal of senses.


Here's some of the family. You can see that despite his claims to the contrary, Andrew's elbow-to-elbow span comes nowhere near to the length of my new TV (my graduation present to myself).

There was much Wii playing. BreAnna really got into the racing games. It was unfortunate that Rockband wasn't working so well. I really wanted to ROCK! There was also a large group of people playing Bunco. I've never played that before, but it seemed that people really enjoyed it. Dr. Norman and his family surprised me even more by stopping by to say "hello". He presented me with my very own x-ray view box as a graduation present! That will go into my new office, for sure!

It was a wonderful party. We all had loads of fun. Big time props to my wife for pulling it off (despite the blatant lies)! This is, I think, the first surprise that she's planned that actually ended up surprising me! She usually gives it away somehow. In retrospect, I should have suspected something by the many odd things she was doing and the uncharacteristic way she was acting and reacting at times. As it is, however, I had a wonderful night, and a wonderful graduation. I hear Portland has had ice storms that night. I'm glad I'm not up there for that.

It's the end of an era. I've been a student in some capacity or another for 77% of my life. That doesn't count my mission even though I studied just as hard. What am I going to do without finals to look forward too? What will I do without teachers to blame my shortcomings on? I'm on my own now. No one else to blame but myself. Sobering.

But I'm so happy to be done! I made my goal of being completely done with school before 30 years old! Barely, but I made it.

I had a wonderful day yesterday. Thank you, dear, for doing all that for me. We celebrated my graduation, but we should celebrate the end of school just as much for you as we have for me. You've sacrificed so much to be on this journey with me and I can't thank you enough for that! Thank you! I love you!

This is Josh after getting into Challene's mascara. Apparently, he thought his eyebrows needed more defining.