Graduation!!!

FINALLY!!!  Last weekend we travelled to Indiana for my graduation from Purdue.  The trip itself was crazy delayed, but worth it in the end.  We were scheduled to leave Corpus on Friday evening, but Dallas-Fort Worth was shut down due to bad thunderstorms.  We considered driving to Dallas or Houston to try to catch an early morning flight out to Indy, but decided to just take the earliest flight out on Saturday, connect through Dallas, and arrive in Indy around 2:00.  It would shift our plans, but at least we would still see everyone!  Well...there were bad thunderstorms in Corpus on Saturday morning - our inbound aircraft was diverted to Laredo - making our outbound flight almost 3 hours late.  So we missed our connection in Dallas. We were set to fly standby on the first flight out from Dallas to Indy, and had confirmed tickets for a later flight.

This is us in Dallas waiting to find out if we would make it on the standby flight...

We started out as numbers 7 and 8...moved up to 5 and 6...

We ended up being numbers 1 and 2...and didn't get on.  So we had to take the later flight - getting us into Indy around 6:45pm.  My poor parents were in Indy since Friday night, waiting for us (although I don't feel too bad for them since they had Ruth's Cris for dinner...).  It caused us to miss the party Dan's family was throwing for my graduation, so we were bummed about that.

Our friends Jason & Emily and Josh & Katie came out to our hotel to have dinner with us though...things were looking up!

Emily, Jason, Katie, Josh, Dan, and I...miss these people!!!

Mom & Dad, Dan and I outside waiting for our dinner table.

Gotta show some skin!!

Graduation morning, we got up and on the road by 6:30am - thinking there would be traffic.  There was none, so we were in Lafayette about an hour before we needed to be.  So we went and took some pictures outside of the main building I worked in while I was there.

This may have been the most appropriate sign we found that morning...

Mom & Dad and I...

Dan and I...

Dan working the cameras...

Onto the actual ceremony - we aren't sure what the white light is in these...we're chalking it up to the Holy Spirit! :-)

Me being hooded by my major professor, Dr. Alan Smith

Outside after commencement - in front of the famous Purdue fountain.  Me and my major professor.

Done with the hat...me and Mom & Dad...

Me and my dear friend, Nicole!

And my favorite boy in the world...

This is also my favorite picture of the day!

After graduation we headed back to Indy to catch our flights out.  Less than 24 hours in the state for Dan and I!  We were able to hook up with Dan's family for lunch...mmmm...Monicals...

Mom and Dad at lunch...

Mike (Dan's brother) and Kendra

Dan's parents - Ted & Becky

All in all, a crazy, but great trip!!  It's still a little surreal that I'm actually finished!  Praise God!