Utah Bound!

Well it is official! We are moving to Utah next week for Brandon's internship. We have been waiting (and praying) for many months to know where we are heading after our college days. Brandon has accepted an internship with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a Product Manager Intern. He will be working in Riverton, UT from January until April. We will be making the move sometime next week so we can be somewhat settled by the time he starts his job. We are so thrilled and blessed to have this opportunity! I have been searching for a job, so hopefully something will present itself soon. I am just so happy that Brandon will be completing his internship and will be learning in such a great environment. He will have such a great experience and it will hopefully help us when we are looking for a real job in the future.

We are going to miss all of our friends in Idaho! It is going to be weird moving, but I know that it is the best thing for our little family.

We hope everyone had a great Christmas! Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

graduation!

The day I never thought would arrive finally did! As we were going through all of the events and ceremonies associated with graduation, it never really felt real. It felt like I was just going through the motions and that I would just have to start school again in a few weeks. I'm not sure when it will actually sink in, but I am glad that I am finally done!

My parents and sisters and Brandon's parents were able to come up for graduation. We loved having them all here to celebrate with us! Graduation day was also Brandon's 24th birthday and Kamilla's 20th birthday! It was such a busy day for our family. We were able to go to Applebee's (the only real restaurant in Rexburg) before the events for a birthday/graduation dinner. I felt so bad that both Brandon and Kamilla had to suffer through a graduation on their birthday! But oh well, they will get over it :)

It was so cold that night, so I decided it would not be the best thing to wear my open-toe black heels. But with the graduation gown I couldn't wear my boots either, that would have looked super weird. So I was stuck wearing my 4 inch (maybe taller) purple heels. My feet were killing me the entire night! Not to mention during the processional it felt like one of my heels was going to snap while walking to my seat! To avoid a disaster such as that, I had to walk slower. This created a HUGE gap between me and the person in front of me. People were staring.

There were two parts to graduation, commencement and convocation. Commencement is where all of the graduates gather and we are addressed by the President of the University and a guest speaker. Convocation is where the graduates separate by college and actually have their names read and walk across the stage to receive their diploma cover.

Commencement was in the new BYU-Idaho Center. It is the huge new auditorium and it can seat around 16,000 people. Our convocation was then held in the Hinckley Building on the opposite side of campus. We decided that we should walk over there because it would have been such a pain to find our cars and then fight for another parking spot. It has been a very dry semester. It has only snowed a handful of times and even then it wasn't that bad. Luck would have it that right as we were leaving Commencement it started to snow! And if any of you know Rexburg, you know how bad the wind is. The combination of the snow and the wind made for a very interesting walk from the I Center to the Hinckley.

Everyone always mispronounces our last name. They always say Heinrick or Henrick or some form of it. Brandon and I were joking that they would mispronounce it when we walked across the stage, and they didn't disappoint! At our convocation (I walked with Brandon's college) they had two different people reading the names. Brandon walked first and I was just behind him. Brandon handed his name card to one guy, and I handed mine to the other. They BOTH said Henrick! Haha it was so funny. And the guy reading Brandon's card said his major was Social Work when it is Sociology. Their mistakes gave us great memories that we will laugh at for years to come.

After graduation, we all came back to our apartment to have ice cream cake for the birthday boy and girl! All in all it was a great day! We can't believe that this part of our lives is done. We never thought it would come, and now that it is here we aren't sure what to do. We are still working on getting Brandon an internship, but we have a feeling that good things will start coming our way! Here are some pictures from the big day!

(at our apartment before the activities) 

(the BYU-Idaho Center during Commencement) 

 (right after Commencement--look at those shoes!)

(with my parents) 

(i love my sisters! missing Chad though!) 

(us with my sweet cousin Jaime who sat through the whole thing!) 

 (both of our families who came)

(officially alumni!) 

(the video of me walking across the stage. notice how he says my name! haha)

a new beginning

I can't believe that I am finally done with college. Sometimes it felt that it would never get here. But now it is here and it doesn't seem real. I have been finished with my classes since Monday and today was my last day of work. It hasn't sunk in yet that our time in Rexburg is over. This has been our home and security blanket for the past 4 1/2 years so it will be a very big change once we actually move.

We still don't know exactly where we are going just yet. Brandon has an interview tomorrow at a very up and coming company in Idaho Falls. Hopefully that works out for us so we can get things ready to move there. I don't really want to move to Idaho Falls, but a job is a job and we can't turn down a job at this point.

On a good note, my family is coming tomorrow! They flew into Salt Lake today and they are driving up tomorrow. I am so excited for them to get here! Maybe then it will actually sink in that I am graduating. These next few days are going to be really busy, but really great!

On to bigger and better things!

(our graduation announcement)