SDSU graduation.

 yep! i walked in the San Diego State commencement ceremony!

I am going to miss this campus a lot. the palm trees, the architecture, the green grass and the beautiful weather makes going to class a teeny bit better. especially since all the classroom doors opened right to the outdoors and the classrooms usually had the windows open. 

on the day of graduation, jon gave me this perfect little gift. two bangles with special engravings on the inside. i love him.

so proud!

it was such a fun day. i have a few classes to take in the fall, but i'm SO glad i made the choice to walk early. i got to graduate with my fellow art history major friends! that would not have happened if i waited until next may to fly back to CA to graduate.

it was such a fun three years at state...the early semesters sucked since they were core classes and my teachers were all too liberal. but once i got into the art and art history courses i was so happy! the teachers were all still liberal, but they weren't so open about their political opinions since we were mostly just talking about art. i loved my teachers and could tell that they enjoyed their jobs. they worked so hard to get what they deserved and what the students deserved amidst all the budget cut stuff going on. 

i'm also thankful for this guy who was so supportive through all of this. i would do homework for hours and hours and hours and he'd sit across from me at the table and use his computer just to keep me company. he would stay up late and read me my notes before my tests the next day and it always helped! he also spent hours reading me literature in my last semester from haughty philosophers like plato, derrida, vasari, panaofsky, foucault, and baudrillard...things that sounded like complete gibberish and didn't make a lick of sense. 

i am excited that the tables have turned and that it is my turn to sit on the sidelines and cheer him on! i guess i'll read to him about cash flows, FIFA, accounts payable/receivable, etc. all those things that i struggled with so badly and soon after changed my major from accounting to interior design. and later in the semester from interior design to art history. i am sure jon will do much better in a business degree that i would have!

and now on to the next chapter in our lives!

a lot.

we are in salt lake. but a lot happened in san diego before we left!

jon getting out of the military meant us getting cut off of free health care which led to me getting lots of shots i didn't want to get. i got the meningococcal (for meningitis) in one arm and the TDAP (tetanus-diphtheria-pertussis) in the other and it was the worst pain of my life. there were a lot of shots i should have gotten in junior high that i never did get. am i proud of that? yeah, a little. am i happy i didn't go through the pain back then with my friends? no, i'm not.

this painful bandaid rash lasted for a full week. seriously, the worst!

 how cute is this guy with his side swept bangs??

 jon had his last day in the marine corps on May 3rd. it was pretty sad. but also not. there were weird mixed emotions and i'm not sure when or if i'll be able to write a post about it. it feels like we are on leave right now and eventually we will make it back to san diego and life will continue like normal.

 jon with his gunny, XO, and CO. they all had some really nice things to say about him. it was touching.

 jon signed his separation papers at about 12:30pm. the most notable part of the whole process was this simple sentence in the papers that may as well have been in bold. "You may proceed to your home of record or any other place you may elect." for four years someone knew where jon was at all times and they were now giving him the opportunity to go anywhere he wished. it was surreal. soooo we immediately went to the spa to get some well deserved pampering! jon got an hour massage, and hour facial, and a half an hour foot massage. (he is not ashamed of this either. you'll hear how nice it was straight from the horses mouth) i got an hour and a half massage. we were in the couples room so when my massage ended, i took a nap on my massage table while his finished up. it wasn't weird at all when i started snoring. after that we ate at smash burger and got frozen yogurt and enjoyed the beautiful night. one of my favorite things about san diego was seeing all of the hot air balloons!

we went to a padre's game with our dear friends steve and judy. they are the padres biggest fans and although i don't like baseball, i did fully appreciate the awesome seats and the amazing view of downtown. petco park is absolutely beautiful. saying goodbye to steve and judy was not fun. they have been so good to us ever since jon joined the military! we love them and the light at the end of the tunnel is them coming to san antonio next year for a wedding in steve's family!

 we love love loved living with the isaac's, they are the best. sully was our best friend and would go on walks with us, laugh so hard on the trampoline, and share his secret hide outs in our new (old) church building. it doesn't hurt that during all of this he's bringing up all the best parts of the office and quoting lines we'd never remember on our own. 

 this girl deserves a shout out. she was such a good companion to me while jon was deployed. we had a falling out right before the boys came home but i blame it on weird emotions that had built up the entire seven months. we've since made up and i couldn't be happier. she is my most faithful reader and even cried when she read my post about my horse show because she knew how much it meant to me. that is a good friend! 

 the isaac's neighbors had baby chicks! i couldn't tell if i loved them or not. they were not chicks but not chickens either. the feathers weren't soft, but they weren't that hard.....weird. but jon loved them and the girls loved putting them all over him!

 the goodbyes continued with mendez and gherine. mendez and i worked together at panera bread and had a really fun relationship. he is from guatemala and i loved hearing stories about how he grew up and liked having him help me with spanish although sometimes he was too honest. (i.e. making fun of my improper spanish and even one time commenting on my recent weight gain.)

gherine is definitely one of my best friends in san diego. we didn't get to see each other as often as i would have liked, but i always loved it when we got together. we initially bonded over justin bieber (we are both too old for him) and our struggles with gardening (we're both doing better). she gave me cooking pointers and always always always noticed if we weren't at church. there was a rough patch when jon first got back from deployment where we started going to church really infrequently and gherine was the only one who ever made sure we knew we were missed. i'm really grateful for that and good news, we are back on track!

the barn i ride at moved up the street. it was a pretty stressful day, but the farmer at the new barn we moved to tried to lighten the mood by carrying corina and i in the tractor! pretty funny!

I'M 25.

we started the birthday celebrations by having brandon and hannah in town! the four of us went and stayed in a somewhat sketchy hotel near sea world. it wasn't so bad and it was fun reminiscing about the first time we met 3.5 years ago and stayed in a somewhat sketchy hotel on camp lejeune! 

we ate breakfast at the mission which is one of jon's favorites.

after breakfast we went to balboa park. we made the rash decision to rent one of these bicycles!!! it was the best decision ever!! we sped around balboa park for almost an hour laughing hysterically. jon was so unsure the first few minutes and we were all over the place. he quickly got comfortable and we saw all of balboa, even the restricted areas. our ride included:
going over a very narrow and pedestrian only bridge
swiping the side of the bike on a pole on a sidewalk (luckily brandon and i pulled our legs in so that we can laugh about the memory and not cry). jon was NOT slowing down. we were very clearly too large to fit in between the two poles, but he was stopping for nothing.
and barely making it up a steep hill. we actually pedaled ourselves halfway up the hill before we came to a dead stop in front of more than four onlookers. we had to back up and get a good head start and we did make it up all the way though we were going verrry slow toward the top of the hill.
it was so much fun and i'm really glad we did that! it was definitely the best part of the day. we visited a couple museums afterwards then headed back to the isaac's for some games.

we have been living with the isaac's who are a family from our ward. it is weird to refer to them as 'the family we are living with' because that makes it sound impersonal. we love living with them so much and they seem like family.
anyway, brandon and hannah came over and we played a good game of monopoly with bella and sully (the two youngest issac's). lucy and brandon enjoyed each others company. we also played settlers of catan nights and cities. it was my first time with that expansion and i really liked it!
brandon and hannah are our game friends. they know a ton of fun games and are always looking for new ones. they are good sports and we always get such a laugh hanging out with them. (kim and mike are our movie friends. lindsay and wes are our SNL friends:))

sunday was my birthday!! we woke up bright and early to attend church from 9-12. after church jon and the isaac's gave me presents and sang happy birthday to me. they were all so nice on my birthday and let me make every decision! we played settlers of catan, had a yummy steak dinner, went on a wilderness walk, watched pitch perfect, ate cake and played the great dalmuti until we were all too sleepy to play any more. seriously, i think they all wanted to finish pitch perfect, but when i mentioned that i wanted to play a game, they turned the movie off and we played a game. annie (the mom) kept saying "it's your birthday! its up to you!" this family is so awesome, they do everything together! we can't figure out if it is always like this or if they all want to hang out with us just because we will be here for a short time. their house is set up perfectly so that the private areas are small and the common areas are big. even if people are in two different rooms, the rooms are all connected so they can talk to each other. i can't explain it, it is just not how i grew up!

jon made me the most delicious cake!!!! chocolate cake with made from scratch chocolate frosting. i was amazed at how good it tasted on day one, but it's only gotten better since. 

it was a fun birthday and i'm so glad we were at the isaac's to celebrate. they did a good job making me feel special and they all kept telling me happy birthday throughout the day. jon was really cute about my birthday as well and got me a really nice card which was my favorite part (along with the cake). i got to talk to my sisters and my dad on my birthday too, technology is so awesome. lizzie, amanda and i chatted on google plus and got such a kick out of the sound affects. if someone said something funny the others would either applaud or put on crickets. it doesn't sound as funny as it was, so you've justttt got to trust me. 

25 is going to be a good year, i can feel it. annie says that every year just gets better and better (until you're 70 at which point everything hurts or at least something hurts at all times) and i think i believe her. 

goodbye first house: bedroom

the last room in the house is our bedroom:

 we have a tiny bed and we constantly fought over how much space the other person was taking up. during the olympics we took our mattress downstairs into the front room for two weeks and pushed it up against the couch. while we were down there, i slept up against the couch and that meant jon got most of the bed! we decided that maybe it'd be better if we pushed our bed into the corner of the room so that i could sleep up against the wall and we'd both be more comfortable. (i don't like sleeping close to the edge of the bed when its in the middle of the room, scary!!) it looks funny having our bed like this, especially since that means the rest of the furniture is lined up on the opposing wall, but it's actually helped a lot! the only thing i don't like is reaching over jon to turn on and off the lamp, and not having a place to plug in my phone.

(mouse!)

i think i posted about this before. jon used to go to work before i woke up and sometimes i was so sleepy i couldn't even say i love you! so i used push pins to spell ILY right by the door so that he knew i loved him every time he left the room, even if i didn't say it. the light switch cover is the one that was in my granny's bedroom forever.

i must say that our room never looks like this. maybe on the first day that we have guests. the floor is usually covered in clothes and shoes! but that's what makes it homey, right?!
i am writing this while i should be studying for my midterm tomorrow. it's been awhile since i've just sat down and written my thoughts like i used to.
it is our last night here in this house. i don't think it has hit me yet, it seems surreal. i did get a dose of reality when we were packing today. in the winter marines wear green cammies. they change to their desert (tan) cammies in the spring and wear them until fall. they just switched from green to tan when the time changed. that means jon won't be wearing his green cammies anymore...who knows if he will ever wear them again. we took out all the drawers from his dresser and he and his dad took the dresser out to the u-haul. i saw his drawer sitting in the middle of the floor filled with his green cammies that he is sending to storage for an indefinite amount of time. it made my heart hurt...a lot. it's enough to have to say goodbye to our first little house and move in with someone else. it's really sad to leave san diego, the place where we've spent our entire marriage, our friends, my school. but to think about leaving the military...that is more heart wrenching than the others. we can come back to san diego, we can come see our friends, i'll be back next year to graduate from my school. but come May 3rd, jon will no longer be wearing his uniform everyday. he won't be able to say "I'm a Marine." i will no longer be a Marine Wife. I mean, i will...but it just won't be the same. it is quite difficult to explain. it's just been amazing to have my spouse do something we are both so proud of. i'm proud that my husband went to afghanistan. i'm proud that he enlisted on his own free will. i'm proud that he has known since he was a child that he wanted to do this and proud that he chose the marine corps because it is the toughest branch(wink). i know we need to move on from this. jon has so much to give the world, so much more than the marine corps will allow him to do. he's starting school in june and i know he will do awesome!  he's had an internship this spring and met a lot of prevalent people who were impressed by him. i know he's going to do great in whatever he decides to do. i am sad to leave california, but i'm ready to be in a state where i can (hopefully) find a job that doesn't require me to mop before i go home, is that too much to ask?
i could ramble on and on, but i really must get to studying. we are packing up the trailer tomorrow and checking out of our house. tomorrow night we are going to sleep at the isaac's (that's who we will be living with when we come back to san diego on april 7th) and then saturday morning the three of us are road-tripping from san diego to san antonio! jon and my FIL tried to warn me about how tiny the middle seat was in the u-haul, but i told them to stop. i wanted to be surprised. i don't deserve to dread the roadtrip three days before we leave. i'll deal it with saturday morning.
wish us (me) luck!

goodbye first house: kitchen

we got our little yellow butter dish from our dear friend from elementary/jr high/high school jenni hens (from anthro). she lives in san diego and goes to SDSU with me! we love her so much. she got that for us for our wedding almost three years ago! we just recently bought the two ceramic jars from the PX because they were ridiculously inexpensive. i like how they look with the painting, but who knows where they will all be in our new place.

the mirror is an heirloom i got from my granny's house after she died. she got it years ago at ZCMI!

there isn't much going on in our kitchen. i always had big plans for it, but they were never carried out. i will miss how big and spacious it is, hopefully our next house will have a kitchen like this. maybe with different cabinets and lighting though...