graduation week with the plothows

Most of the Plothow gang came to visit for Sam's graduation so we had to do all the fun things!

Wednesday we started off strong with a hike around Torrey Pines Reserve down to the beach.

 Sam and Rapha were already best buds by day one! 

And this is probably foreshadowing for the amount of pictures I'm going to take when we have babies of our own. But Sam + a baby is too cute not to share!

And then there's me with kids...

 Ps. probably what our babies will look like one day.

After playing on the beach we hit up Taco Stand in La Jolla for some bomb Mexican food and went to see the end of "pupping season"--all the baby seals and sea lions.

 Thursday Sam, Emily, Ethan and I went to Disneyland! 

It was so great to have a pro (Emily) guide us from ride to ride and we finished Frontierland and Tomorrowland by noon!

Dole Whip--what a lactose intolerant person's dreams are made of!

You can totally see the mid day crash happening on their faces....getting sleepy.

It was so fun to hit up Disneyland WITH Sam for the first time ever!

Friday even though it wasn't the warmest day, we went to Pacific Beach and most of the crew got in the water and boogie boarded/surfed/snorkeled. There was also football, spike ball, and sand castle building involved. 

Saturday was graduation and I posted more photos on a separate post here.

That night we had a bonfire at Coronado with s'mores and hotdogs and spent the night chatting huddled next to the fire because it was freezing! 

Sunday everyone headed back home expect the NY Plothows and we went to church and had Sunday dinner together. Monday night dinner in Old Town together before they caught their flight home the next morning. It was a great week filled with lots of fun things, but most importantly, FAMILY! 

sam's graduation

After 4 long years, I never thought this day would come. But here we are, GRADUATION!

Sam put everything he had into school and spent more hours studying than I can even count or imagine (but I guess I can imagine it because I was there!) He did it! 

He even finished with a 3.5 GPA and graduated with honors!! 

I've never more proud in my whole life!! 

It was such a great day celebrating all of Sam's accomplishments--2 degrees: JD & MBA, graduating top 20% of his class, a Cali Award (the top grade) in and the fact that he has a post bar job!! 

And  the best part that made it so fun was to have so many people come and celebrate with us!

(And here's a link to a video of the week's shenanigans.)

Maggie, Ky, and Everest came from Las Vegas! 

Lyndon and Christine's family came all the way from NY for a whole week!

Proud parents Phillip and Emily!

My parents!

And most of the Plothow siblings besides Hannah (who is in Zimbabwe on her mission) & Brooke's family in Utah with new baby Ty! 

And we are so happy that we got to finish the last 3 years of school with the Koons by our side! Cortney and I are so happy we had each other while the boys were together studying for countless hours!  

Look at these two besties! 

Made it through thanks to their competitive drive forcing each other to be better but mostly the many late night Destiny/PUBG/Fortnite games. 

The 3 Mormon amigos. 

And now for a ton of pictures of Sam and I because it was seriously the happiest day of my life to date (besides our wedding of course)! I was seriously so nervous/excited waiting for his name to be called! My "palms were sweaty, knees weak, arms heavy, vomit on my sweater already: Mom's spaghetti!"...Eminem anyone? Sam says that lyric all the time so it just came to me as I was typing sweaty palms...Anyway I totally started tearing up as they called his name. And then he had to go and dab right after they said his name. Ruined the whole moment lol. But that's Sam for you, never takes anything too seriously which is a good thing I guess. #stayhumble 

How cute does he look in his new suit!! 

So proud of our grad!!

Love you Samuel Thomas Plothow, JD, MBA!! 

YOU DID IT!! 

sara's graduation

Since January, I had been counting down the days until April so I could take a few days of work and celebrate Sara's graduation from BYU! Darn little rascal didn't even come to my graduation but love her anyway! But before the festivities we also got to celebrate the life of Grandpa Mont. 

It was so great being with family and reminiscing through photos and music. 

Also it was the first time I played my violin in about a year.....still got it!

 Love us some Grandma Ivie! 

& 

Baby Enzo!

It was a whirlwind of a day + flying in from San Diego at 4am did not help so we crashed hard!

The next day we had a family luncheon to celebrate our little Sara. We had yummy food of course and watched a slideshow of baby Sara pics. 

Then we headed to BYU commencement to hear Elder Holland speak. 

We got to see the fam because Michael graduated from BYU Law School and Jenni's fiance Ben graduated as well. 

And we got to see our bff Abby before she left for Portland!

 The next day baby girl got her diploma graduating from the School of Communications with an emphasis in advertising and a business minor! 

 Fam photo in front of the HBLL where Sara worked most of her BYU days. 

 So proud of you SARA! You're a smart cookie and I can't wait to see where life takes you!