Kyler's Graduation

My handsome husband Kyler got to walk for graduation a few weeks ago. 

He still has one semester left and will officially graduate this December, but it was so fun to see him walk with his friends that did officially graduate and celebrate all of his hard work so far. We had a great photo shoot afterwards. :) 

He is getting his JD-MBA, which is a joint Law and Business degree. Typically, a Law degree takes 3 years, and a business degree takes 2, but he will be getting both in 3 1/2! Pretty darn impressive if I do say so myself. :) 

He is such an amazing student and gets awesome grades. He is naturally as smart as they come, but he also works so hard and puts forth a lot of time and effort into studying. He is just the best. 

His brother Drew graduated with a Bachelors and Masters in Accountancy. He did a joint program and graduated with both degrees in 5 years, instead of the 6 or 7 it could take! These McCarty's just have great genes. :) 

These boys are great friends and we are so proud of them both!

Our friend Dave Ellsworth graduated as well, and it was so fun to see him and Mistie and their adorable baby Jed again since they moved to California a few months ago. We love them! 

After ceremonies were over, we had a little celebration at our home the following Saturday that my sister in law Rachel and I planned together. I got a little excited and planned a lot of fun decorations.  Rach did an awesome job getting things together and making sure we had food and help! She is a great organizer. :) Please note the precious pictures of these brothers as little boys below!

Also at the party we had about one million babies. It was hard to get a lot of good pictures because most of the little ones were pretty mobile, but here is a picture of  my provo-ward friends and I with our precious little ones. :)

Henry and I, Jess and Daniel, Mistie and Jed, and Nique and Brooklyn. Grateful for them! 

Also we managed to get a good shot of Henry with his cousin Axel. They are a month apart! They were being so cute together, and this picture cracked me up because they are literally making the same face. Cute boys! 

Such a fun weekend! So proud of my (almost official) graduate! :) 

Not According to Plan

When I first met Kyler, he was bent on going to business school at Penn State. That had been his goal for the last few years, and he was really excited for it to happen. He was working as a store manager for Franklin Covey in Layton, and was doing a mighty fine job might I add. I fell in love with his hard working and motivated personality and wanted to take on the world with him. Thankfully, he fell in love with me too.

As we were engaged and preparing for our wedding, he was also working on applications and taking the GMAT and the LSAT in order to qualify for law and business schools. He scored exceptionally well on both tests, especially when considering that he didn’t take a prep class for either of them. He just found preparation books and taught himself what was needed. (and if you know anything about these kinds of tests, that is pretty rare and quite impressive). He applied to a few high ranked schools out of state, and then we had this feeling we couldn’t quite shake about applying for BYU in Provo. That was basically the last place we wanted to be (because we wanted that out of state adventure), but we gave into the feeling and sent the applications off.

In our first few months of marriage he received acceptances to law schools as well as business schools. He was accepted to BYU, but we just kind of brushed that off. Penn state and Indiana University were the two we were most excited about. We flew out and toured both schools and were really excited. We felt so good about the programs, plus the other new students and families we met there seemed so awesome and welcoming.  But, tuition became a real buzz kill for us.

Out of state tuition is crazy! Kyler had received scholarships to both out of state schools, but it was still going to land us into quite a bit of debt, especially because I still had 2 years of school left as well. Add it all up and sheesh, we’d be swimming in debt for years to come.

Suddenly, BYU’s low tuition started looking really good. It was still highly ranked and would provide Kyler with a fantastic education, but Provo? Kyler had attended the University of Utah for his Bachelor’s degree, and if you are from Utah, you’d know that these two schools are big rivals. Plus we wanted adventure! We wanted to live out of state! How could we settle for staying in Utah for BYU?

Well, I will tell you right now that the Lord works in mysterious ways. Kyler and I decided to pray about it, and the nagging feeling that we should think seriously about BYU began to grow. Before we knew it, we were packing our bags for the Y with semi rebellious hearts, but knowing that this would be best for us overall.

And then boom. Here we are 3 years later, with Kyler graduating this December, and we are so grateful to be here. We have learned a lot, and Provo turned out to be just what we needed in our lives. Plus we  found so many people that we really love here in Provo.

So Provo, we owe you an apology. We are sorry for our short sightedness and pride. We feel bad for casting you aside and treating you like dirt for so long. You have been so good to us and we will forever cherish our memories here. BYU, we owe you an apology too. There are plenty of funny rebels and free thinkers here, and we are grateful to have received a well-rounded education from you. Thank you for changing our lives and teaching us about following the Lord’s plan for us. 

Besides, it was pretty small minded of us to think you can only have adventures out of state. Having adventure is more a state of mind than a prize based off of your location. And really, we can plan all we want, but God’s plan for us is far more rewarding and it turns out it's always exactly what we needed. 

picture taken from www.et.byu.edu