It's been too long

Lots has happened since I last blogged. Perhaps the most exciting was that we walked in our graduation ceremonies! Such a surreal moment for me--I never expected to actually do that. It is a goal that has felt impossible for so much of the time. But we did it, and it was awesome. The Parkes Clan came up (and down) to celebrate with us and clap and cheer for us. We hosted a lunch back at our apartment where we ate sub sandwiches and some cupcakes that we made. We LOVED spending that time with all of them, they are so cool and fun!

Obligatory Graduation Selfie

Our commencement ceremony! I think I remember them saying there were over 8,000 graduates at this ceremony! Arthur C. Brooks gave a great speech for this, you can read it here: https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/arthur-c-brooks_more-love-less-contempt/

Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve

By the library

At Mason's convocation!!!

I'm in here somewhere.... (my convocation)

Michelle and Lane

Axe throwing that night with the fam! I had SO MUCH FUN with Maddie during this.

On a more somber note, Grandma Mingledorff passed away in March. I almost didn't go to the funeral (in GA), but after much coaxing from my siblings and a particularly emotional conversation with Mom, I decided to go. I am grateful that Mom didn't tell me I had to come, but that she offered her personal insights and allowed me to make my own decision. It was really, really hard being there, especially for the viewing, and I was a total basketcase pretty much the entire time, but now looking back on it, I am glad that I decided to go. Some of the highlights for me were: spending some time with Russell and having some good talks with him, seeing all of Dad's siblings together (they are SO FUNNY), seeing Grandma Johnson, the closing hymn that Grandma picked out for the funeral (may the good Lord bless and keep you), seeing the beauty of Georgia (including the Camellia tree outside Grandma's house), and of course, all the Dairy Queen I got to eat. Shell did a really great blog post about it all, and since she has so many great pictures I don't have, I'm just going to link her post here:

http://nateandmich.blogspot.com/2019/05/grandmas-funeral.html

 I found these clovers in Grandma's yard. They have hearts on them!

All of the girls (minus Jen) in the car on the way to visit Jenna!

We made it through finals last semester, and now we are in spring term! Campus is beautiful, the weather is fantastic most of the time (although it's supposed to rain like every day for the next ten days, and be back in the fifties...).

We are both enjoying our classes. Mason is taking a neuroscience class from my favorite professor ever, Dr. Rebekka Matheson, and he is killing it and learning a ton and teaching me pieces of what he learns and I am loving it! He is also in a service through learning class, and has to do some community service for 20 hours this term. He's continuing to work as a TA, which he is so passionate about, and finds to be very fulfilling. Hopefully he can get his senior thesis done this term and then he will be free as a bird!

I am in 2 Psych classes (309 and 310) and they are really challenging but I think I'm enjoying them. Probably the most stressful thing about these is that I'm in a ton of group projects, and that always stresses me out. But my groups are good! I'm also in an English class (well, really I think it's actually a history class,) and that one is a TON of work with about a million assignments, but it's been pretty interesting so far. We have a class blog! To see the things I've posted, you can search for the label, "Posted by Brianna P." Here's the link to the blog: https://rhetciv.blogspot.com/

Shauna and Doug and their kids came out here for a funeral, and we got the immense pleasure of watching Evan (their youngest) for most of a day. It was so fun, even though we don't have a ton of experience watching little kids. We played on the playground, fed ducks, swung in the hammock, and watched a bunch of Magic School Bus. Also, funny story: he had a little accident that was totally my fault, and after when me and him were both soaked he kept looking at our shower and saying something. I can only understand about 60% of what he says because he's so little, and so I thought he was saying he needed to take a shower. I asked him, "Does your mom make you shower after you have an accident?" To which he replied, "Yeeees," in his cute little Evan voice. So I turned it on, he told me to turn it off because it was too loud, to which I replied, "It's not as loud once you actually get it!" And then I popped him in for a minute, and he just kind of ran around in the tub. Then we dried him off, washed his clothes, and watched Magic School Bus.

I can't believe I haven't posted about this, but we decided we are going to Auburn University in the fall for Mason to get his PhD!!!! We are very excited, and very nervous, and pretty much every other emotion too. He has to be there by August 12. Time to look for an apartment!!!

Oh, also, I had a birthday in the past 2 months too. Mason is so fun on birthdays. He made me the cutest cake (yellow with chocolate frosting and a heart made of jumbo chocolate chips on top.) For presents, he got me a shower cap (which I've wanted FOREVER) and my very own harmonica! I haven't had a ton of time to practice, but I learned the Piano Man harmonica part, and happy birthday. I sent this video to Mom on our birthday:

Celebrating the Holidays!

Well, Christmas break is over and we've made it through our first week of school. Go us! Christmas break was fun--we spent some time at Shell and Nate's house for the beginning of the break (we were there on Christmas day and got to sleep with a surprise kitten in our room for a few nights! The kitty, named Timothy, only pooed a couple times, but MAN did it STINK.). It was so fun to be with the kids and see the wonder and excitement in their eyes on Christmas morning. It was also fun on Christmas Eve night to see them all exchange their gifts and to give them the gifts from the dollar store that we got for all of them. I think Asa liked his present the most. We got him a little flashlight with a button on it and he walked around shining it everywhere for a long time. :)

 We went to see the lights they do at the Roy fire station, and witnessed Nate accidentally plowing over Bryn while playing tag. It was cold and Mason let me wear his jacket, because he's SUCH a sweet heart!

 We spent some time outside playing in the snow (this was before it really snowed). We also got to go sledding with some of the Waite's friends later, and it was a blast!

It was so pretty! I love looking at the coniferous trees with snow on them, they're gorgeous!

 Sweet little Timmy, who was named Africa by Mason and I while he was living in our room. He's precious!

Also, I got to squeeze my Latin hips between 2 car seats and Mason sat on the floor of the minivan for some of our car rides. :) I don't even mind doing that! These kids are fab!

It was also really fun to give/receive presents with Mason for our first Christmas being married. I'm glad we'll have lots more Christmas's together! :)

A few days after Christmas, we had a beautiful trip down to Las Vegas to spend time with the Parkes family. It was so fun to go down there and see everyone!And there was no snow! We actually got to go running outside for several days because the weather was in the 40s a lot. It was great!

For a few days we watched some distant relative's kids, and it was quite an adventure (7 kids, only 2 could talk!) but there was one named Axel who was a favorite and just ADORABLE.

AND THEN WE GOT TO GO TO IKEA FOR THE FIRST TIME AND IT WAS LIFE CHANGING. Unfortunately, this was the only picture I took the entire time. I think it looks like the space ball Christmas lights we used to have in front of my house.

For New Years we had discada, a new tradition that has emerged at the Parkes home. :)

We also went on a day trip to Death Valley, which was my first time being in California that wasn't for marching band! It was fascinating and fun and so cool to look around and explore, and we LOVED being with Mason's family! The road home was really bumpy and windy (that's like, a winding road. Not like, wind blowing) and dark, but we stopped for a minute or two to look up and see the stars. It's been a long time since I've seen so many, and it was truly awe-inspiring.

Pictures of Death Valley coming soon!



The next day Maddie and her boyfriend Tony came to town, and we partied it up with them! We were able to go to a really interesting aquarium called the Shark Reef and Mandalay Bay. There was an octopus there! (I'm going through an octopus phase... I just love them!) And we got to touch some kind of sting ray thing and look at piranhas and LOTS of sharks!

Then, we walked all the way across the strip and saw some street dancers, which I thought was awesome. It was cool to look at all the casinos and stuff, even though I for one was a grump for a little while. I blame it on dehydration. We stopped and I chugged an entire Arizona in about 7 seconds flat and felt like a new woman.

Then, we made it to THIS!

It was sooooooooooo much fun to go up so high and see Las Vegas from 550 ft up! Mason liked it too, he started to get his groove on in there. ;) It was excellent because we got the entire car to ourselves, just the 4 of us! I absolutely loved it. Thanks to mom and dad Parkes for making it possible.

All in all, it was a fabulous and much needed Christmas break. We are excited for school to start again!