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!! 

march

March has been an interesting month. It seems like the days at work are sooooo long and brutal and I'm exhausted every day when I get home. But on the other hand, the days are flying by and I can't believe that the month is almost over! Even though the days seem endless, with no end in sight, we've had some fun days here and there. 

First, Sam visited me at work one Friday to get his teethies cleaned and we had tons of fun like always. 

Then because we both usually finish work early on Fridays we stopped by the beach for a little day date together! And it was actually warm! We've been having some cold, windy days lately which is making me so ready for summer waves!

Second, Sam had his very last spring break! But because he's the business school has a different spring break he still had classes + his weekend classes. Major bummer!! But luckily we got to spend Wednesday afternoon together. We went to Lemonade for lunch then visited the Children's Pool in La Jolla to see the baby seals during pupping season. It's hard to find things we've never done in San Diego but this was a first! Then we went to the temple. 

Third, we got to see the Tippetts and go to dinner with them!

Fourth, Dad came to visit for less than 24 hours but because Sam had classes over the weekend I was happy to have the company. We really wanted to go to the Carlsbad Flower Fields but they weren't fully in bloom yet and it was raining a little bit so we decided to go to the Cherry Blossom Festival at the Japanese Friendship Garden in Balboa Park. Then we went to the Botanical Garden and had a mexican food in Old Town for lunch. 

Fifth, it was Sam's 29th birthday! We both had work and after school was over at 5:30, Sam had to go back to work and was there until 8:30. But we were able to go to the Cheesecake Factory for a late dinner date. But then poor baby boy got sick and was up all night long. So not the best birthday but there's always next year right? We didn't get a picture on his actual birthday so here's a cute baby one...