Saying goodbye to Omaha

Before leaving Omaha, we decided to go to our favorite restaurant, California Tacos.  I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but part of the reason that Mark really likes it is because it used to be California Street Pharmacy.  The story goes, so the owner told us, that his family had owned and operated California Street Pharmacy for many generations.  When it passed to him, he didn't want to be a pharmacist, so he decided to turn it into a Taco shop.  He kept many of the old, (and I mean REALLY old), pharmacy equipmenton display in the restaurant.  The tacos and other menu items are actually pretty good. 

So after a day of packing, we went to say good bye.

This was after a day of packing, so that is why I look so terrible!  But the chips were yummy!

Before we moved we got rid of the couch, and were reduced to the futon.  Whenever I would lay on it, Polly thought she had to join me.  The futon eventually went too.

As we cleaned out the top floor, we moved our desk downstairs.  So Polly then thought she had to be involved in anything we were doing at the desk since it was in the kitchen.

Mark's Graduation

It's all over!  Doctor Mark graduated today!  Mark is now a PharmD.  It was actually a shorter ceremony than the hooding ceremony, even though there were 4 times as many people.  It was neat that he was able to graduate with two other people from our branch, Brandon Snedeger, PharmD, and Josh Wood, M.D.  Here are the few pictures that we were able to take.  I forgot my camera, so all I had to use was the video recorder to take pictures.  Because I only had the one camera, I decided to video Mark walking across the stage since they had professional photograpers, and so don't have pictures of him receiving his diploma.  We are going to be buying the professional pictures once they are available, and then post them on here.  Here are the ones I have right now...

Mark headed to the stand to have his name read.

This was the scroll sign they had in the Qwest Center, which is an awesome arena, by the way...

more scrolliness...

and more scrolliness.

Mark walking back to his seat after receiving his diploma

Josh Wood.  From where I was sitting, this was the best picture that I could get.

Brandon Snedeger, sorry it is blurry!

Hooding

The big day has arrived, and gone.  Now we have another big day.  But back to the first big day.  Yesterday was Mark's PharmD hooding ceremony.  Talk about exciting!  I filmed almost the whole thing for my parents who are serving a mission in Hawaii (and so couldn't make it) so I didn't get many pictures because I was filming.  But my brother Richard was kind enough to take pictures for me, and we will hopefully get them from him when we stop in Utah.  My brothers, Richard, Darron, and Jared, all made the long drive out from Utah to support Mark.  Here are the few that I took from the event. 

Mark's Cap and Gown hanging on the wall, waiting for its debut.

Mark's hood

Mark, reading over the instructions, again, for the hooding ceremony.

Mark enjoying the ceremony.

Mark waiting in line to be hooded.

and waiting...

and waiting...

and waiting...

and waiting some more.

Commencement photos to come soon!

Mark's Last Scout Meeting for Conestoga Branch

Mark has been serving as the Webelos leader for the 4 wards/branch that meet in our building for more than a year now, and had his last pack meeting tonight.  One of the boys from our Branch, Jeshua, finished all of the requirements to receive his arrow of light, so Mark wanted to do something special for him.  He really likes sci-fi so he made a replica of the time machine, the TARDIS, from Doctor Who.

The who group had a lot of fun with it, and once we came down off the high from the spray paint, we were glad we made it for him.  We made it from an old cabinet that we had in the garage that we were going to get rid of, and a lantern, which we were also going to get rid of.  We painted everything, added letter stickers, and added sound effects and called it a TARDIS. 

Mark giving awards to his scouts.

We had Jeshua step into the TARDIS, then a younger boy came out.

Then a boy a little older came out

Then a little older,

Mark and the TARDIS

Then Jeshua's father, as the future Jeshua

and finally the presentation of the Arrow of Light.

Jeshua in the TARDIS

Jeshua, Mark, and the TARDIS

Wrappin' Up and Recap

I have been sick for almost a week, and so I decided to use the down time to post what we have been up to for the past, oh, really long time.  Unfortunately, I haven't blogged anything of substance for so long that I am just going to do a recap of the past several months. 

First of all, we are REALLY sad to be leaving Omaha.  We have been trying to do everything that we love doing around here before we go, since it is highly unlikely that we will be coming back, at least not any time soon.  We are trying to walk at our favorite parks as often as possible with the dogs, too.  Hopefully we can all transition well to Flagstaff. 

One of our favorites things to do here, Baseball!  Can I just say, the new TD Ameritrade Park, which was built for the College World Series, is pretty awesome! It is in walking distance of our house, too.  We wish that we could go to the CWS, but since we can't we are really enjoying Creighton's games.

Us at the TD Ameritrade Park watching Creighton baseball

TD Ameritrade Park

We have some really great friends that gave us tickets to go see Les Miserables at the Orpheum theater.  First of all, the Orpheum theater is absolutely beautiful.  The only drawback is that is was definitely built during a time period of short people, because Mark's knees have never fit when we go there.  Any way, it was great to get dressed up and go there one more time before we leave.  The pictures aren't so great, but that's how I do my pictures, apparently. 

Inside of the Orpheum Theater.

Dressed up and ready to go. Isn't Mark so handsome?!

We were lucky enough to watch BYU play Creighton on March 21, 2011.  Unfortunately, it was before the TD Ameritrade Park was finished, so it was at Creighton's practice field which isn't very nice, and then BYU lost.  They won the next day, though!

BYU batting against Creighton

We also celebrated Mark's 29th Birthday!  Yea!  We had a small get together the day before his birthday with some of our closest friends from the Conestoga Branch.  It was a lot of fun, and we will definitely miss everyone!  We had two cakes because some of our friends cannot eat gluten, so we had a regular Costco cake, yum!, and a gluten free cake, and of course ice cream.

I wish I had more pictures of the group, but some of our super amazing friends will be having a graduation party on Saturday, so I hope to get more pictures of everyone then.

For his birthday day, April 18th, I made a simple dinner of steak and potatoes because I was swamped with school.













 
And I got a cupcake at Jones Bros. cupcakes so that he could have something on his birthday.  I was out of candles, so I had to use one of the grill lighting matches for a candle.  Perfect height for him!

 

A couple days before Mark's birthday some crazy kids stole a small Bobcat from Creighton and went on a joyride through the common area behind the house.  They ramped it over the edge of the playground and got it stuck, not to mention it probably gave one of the kids a concussion when they landed.  After Mark called management and security showed the kids ran off.  I should have taken a picture of the kids while they were trying to dig it out, maybe that would have helped the police catch them!

Bobcat stuck in the playground

During one of my baking sprees I baked some Valentine's day cupcakes for the Elders.  I have to say, they were really good!  They were a red velvet cherry cupcake.  I also made some "Butterfly" cupcakes, I guess that is what they are supposed to look like, if done correctly!

 Mark got me some beautiful roses, and The Sorcerer's Apprentice

 I got Mark the Bourne Trilogy, he loves it!, and some candy

 And to finish things off, a blog post just isn't complete without some pictures of our rascally dogs!

Polly enjoys a good foot every now and then!