The after party

 I promise this will be my last graduation post. Maybe. 

 I struggled for weeks and weeks to try and come up with a way to say thank you to all those who were so vital in supporting us and lifting us up in prayer over the past 3 3/4 years. I even joined Pinterest to try and glean some ideas!!

 In the end, I settled on a casual party thrown in honor of Graham but also in honor of our guests to say "thanks for sticking by us!" 

 I also threw in a from-the-heart-toast (read: I cried) in which I tried to vocalize how much everyone there meant to us. Words never seem like quite enough but hopefully they got the point across. 

 We ate Asian pork tacos and fruit and had strawberry shortcake with homemade ice cream for dessert. Thanks Isla for the ice cream!

 

 I was so glad Graham's cousin Mark and his wife Heidi were still in town for the occasion. We love this couple!

 

 We missed having our out-of-town friends there to party with us as they were a tremendous support to us as well. 

We are thrilled to close this chapter of our lives and try our hand at being parents without grad school to complicate it. Here we are already over a month out and still feel like we are waiting for life to slow down, probably partially because Graham's still studying for his certification exam. I guess our pace won't slow unless we make it. Prayers for his test which is scheduled for Monday night!! We are praying for clear guidance after that's done.