MBA Hooding

Last Friday before our trip to Houston, we attended JW's MBA hooding ceremony.  Joey's dad, sister, and mom came in town to go with us.  There were several MBA students being hooded that night with different specialties, but JW was the only joint Law and MBA student.

 

 It was a pretty small and intimate ceremony, so I got to stand up there and get good pictures.  We all hooped and hollered as they called Joey's name and announced his post-graduation career plans.  So proud.

 Joey and his dad

 Jenn, me, JW, and Joe

 Momma Hance and JW

 Carol, JW, me, and Jennifer

  The MBA graduate and his proud wife

JW is done with graduation ceremonies now!  We have been thankful for a time to reflect and celebrate the opportunities and accomplishments God has allowed us over the last several years of JW's school career.  We're now ready to fully move forward in our transition to Houston and the new things the Lord has in store for us there. 

Graduation Day!

Oh, how we've dreamed of this day!  On April 28, 2012, JW graduated from Baylor Law School with honors.  He was one of eleven students to graduate cum laude because not only did he finish Baylor Law School, which is referred to the Marine Corps of law schools, he did it while maintaining a 3.4 GPA.  Needless to say, I was a proud wife when they called JW's name to walk across that stage.

We had lots of friends and family make the trip to be in town to celebrate with us... 25 people to be exact.  We had a large cheering section and were so honored to have loved ones there for the momentous occasion.

Most of my pictures turned out blurry, so we're going to have to get copies of the ones the professional photographer was taking.

Such a handsome graduate!

Hance Family: Macie, Matthew, Angie, JW, me, Joe, and Jennifer

Proud daddy!  JW and Joe

Momma Hance, JW, me, and Jenn

 

Nana, Papa, Carol, JW, me, and Jennifer

Mullings crew: Claire, Hunter, JW, me, Mom, and Dad

Gotta love that wind!

With the Perry's: me, JW, Adam, and Lauren

Uncle Randy, Aunt Gigi, JW, me, Erica, and Jake

That wind was picking up!

Howard, JW, me, and G-Ma

The graduate and his proud wife

After graduation, we had a party in a room at our church.   We ate lunch, visited, and then had a pick-up basketball game.  You know Joey has never turned down the opportunity for competition, and when we reserved the party room at church, we got half of the basketball court too.  So, we had friends bring a change of clothes so they could play basketball after lunch.  JW had a blast!  It was really fun to watch them and was a perfect ending to a pretty great day.

With the Hitte's: me, JW, Cory, and Lauren

Meg, JW, and me

Rich had a youth event for church, so he couldn't make the trip, but Megan came in and represented the Roush's.  We missed you, Richie Rich!

Papa, JW, me, and Nana

Momma Hance, JW, and me

JW and Dana

This is one of the judges in Ft. Worth that Joey clerked with last summer.  She and her district staff have been so sweet to keep up with JW.  We were honored to have her there to celebrate with us.

I spent all day Friday cooking 15 lbs. of pulled pork, sides, and dessert.  Momma Hance, Jennifer, and Nana and Papa came in that afternoon in time to help me finish up some centerpieces, take us out to dinner, and go and setup the party room.  They were a huge help!

You probably don't care much about the menu, but I want to remember what we had, so here's the list:

Appetizers:

Salsa and Spinach Artichoke Dip with pita chips and crackers

Lunch:

BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches on rolls, Potato Casserole, Fruit Salad, and Cole Slaw

Dessert:

 Spice Cake, Lemon Snowball cookies, and Momma Hance made her famous Cheesecake, brownies, and Hermits

I had never cooked for 30 people before, so we definitely aired on the side of having too much food rather than not enough.  JW had the idea to purchase disposable tupperware so that our guests could take left-overs home with them.  That ended up being a great idea and many people took food home with them.

For the centerpieces, I got three different sized mason jars and tied natural, yellow, and green raffia around the top, filled them with sliced lemons and limes, and fresh flowers.  They went on top of burlap in the middle of each table and turned out pretty cute!  I will definitely save the jars to use for parties in the future.  Math is not my strong suite and I had a major brain fart when buying them, so we actually have twelve of each.  Thank goodness Momma Hance arrived before I had put flowers in all of them! :)

Friend table: Lauren, Adam, Cory, Lauren, and Meg

Mom, me, and Claire

The ladies in my family all ended up wearing the same color and it wasn't even planned.

Angie, Macie, and Jennifer

Pretty ladies!  This turned out to be a really cute picture.

Let the games begin...

We are very blessed to have such amazing friends and family to celebrate life with!  Law school has been a challenging chapter that has taught us a lot.  We are thankful for the support of friends and family throughout the journey and look forward to beginning our new chapter in Houston very soon.

Out with a Bang

This weekend was my last March for Babies in Waco and it was a big success!  I feel so blessed to have had so many family members come in to be a part and help out.  Here is a picture of our crew.

Jake, Erica, Aunt Gigi, Hunter, Dad, Mom, Me, Joey, Joe

Grandpa and Megan came as well, but had already left to drive back to Dallas before we took this picture.  It was a bittersweet day for me.  This was my fourth and final walk as the Director in Waco.  I have loved my time here, and my job has been a big part of that.  I will most definitely cherish the memories and all of the relationships I have been blessed to have with volunteers and friends.

After all of the event breakdown, our family came back to our place and we grilled burgers for lunch.  It was an exhausting, but really great weekend.

Monday when I got home from work, look what my sweet hubby had waiting for me.

Purple roses for my last Waco March of Dimes event and a gift certificate for a massage and facial.  I am so lucky!

Guess what today was????  JW's last day of class... EVER!

I have a feeling this looks a lot like some of the pictures Momma Hance has of him growing up on the first day of school every year.  So, now he has a couple of days to study before finals start this Saturday.  By this time next week, JW will be finished with finals and we will be ready for graduation!  Woo hoo!  I can't believe it's finally here.

Sic 'Em BU Homecoming

The weekend before my life got crazy with an event week was Baylor Homecoming!  Tegan was still with us, and Meg and Rich came back in town on Thursday evening.  It was fun to have them back in Waco for the weekend.

Tegan and Harley

The weather was nice, so our girls spent most of the weekend outside.

Kristen, Georgia, and Matt

On Friday, Megan's sister, brother-in-law, and niece came to Waco and stayed with us for a night.  It was fun to see them, and Georgia is so stinking cute!  She has grown a lot since the last time we saw her.

Friday night we headed to campus for the pep rally and bonfire. It was fun to be back on campus. 

Me and the hubs

Shay and me

We ended up getting to campus pretty early and found the library, that now has a Starbucks in it... new addition since our college days.  That's where we met up with Shay Bear and got warm drinks that took the chill off walking around before they lit the bonfire.

Me, Joey, Megan, Rich, and Shay

I enjoyed the music that the Golden Wave Band played at the pep rally... all the songs that I remember from the sideline when I cheered in college. Shay and Megan were laughing at me trying to make sure we didn't miss any of it.

Sic 'Em Baylor Homecoming 2011!

Blowout Kind of Day

Since it was the Friday leading into a holiday weekend, March of Dimes offices closed at 12:00.  I called Joey to see if he wanted to meet for a quick lunch before his afternoon classes, and a group of law students were going to Rudy's, so I met them there.  I enjoyed a yummy BBQ Baked Potato and then headed home.  Only I didn't make it very far...

That's me on the shoulder of I-35.  I was driving along, in the left lane of course, and I hear this loud whoosing sound over the song on the radio that I was singing along with.  (This won't be as good as me reenacting with my sound effects and body movements, but I'll try to make you feel like you were there with me.)  Ok, so loud whoosing... and I thought it was some bozo with a loud car around me.  I was looking around annoyed trying to figure out who would drive a car that is so loud.  Not being able to recognize the bozo, I start noticing my car riding a little rougher and decide to get over- thank goodness!  I then decide quite quickly it is my car making the horrendous noise and it sounds like it's going to blow up... not good.  So, I make it to the shoulder, and as I slow down it becomes hard to keep moving further over.  I then noticed my car feeling a bit lob-sided and it dawns on me...  I must have a flat tire!  Before you laugh at me and think I should have realized what it was earlier, let me just say, I have never had a flat before and it all happened so fast.  So anyways, panicked because my car is swaying every time a car zooms by my on the highway, I called Joey.  Thank you Lord that he was not in class yet!  He said that his afternoon class was not part of PC and the students he was with would tell the professor that he had to help me with a flat.  So, he left the law school to be my knight in shining armor on the side of I-35. 

With my car being on the highway, and of course the blown tire being on the side where cars where zooming by, neither one of us felt good about Joey changing it.  Momma Hance has AAA and Joey is still listed on her plan, so we called them.  A nice guy named Cody showed up about an hour later and put on my spare.  I joked with Joey saying that God planned this so that we could spend an hour together in the car.  That's more time than we've gotten together all week! :)

So, after that fiasco I went home and Joey went back up to the school for one more class.  Megan came in town this weekend, so she met me at the house and we chatted for awhile and then headed to Marshall's.  Joey met us there, we finished our shopping, and then headed back to the house to get ready for the Baylor game.  Joey got us tickets from a judge that he clerked with this summer who couldn't make it down for this game.  We had dinner with Meg and then Joey and I headed to Floyd Casey Stadium to watch the Baylor Bears whoop up on TCU.

Let me just say that after being a cheerleader at BU and getting to games hours early and parking for free, getting there with everyone else for a packed game was a mess!  I was a little frazzled by the time we made it to our seats, but it was well worth it.  We got to watch a pretty great game and despite Joey's expression in this picture, he had fun too! :)  Baylor won our first game of the season 50 to 48 against TCU, who happened to have a pretty good season last year!  Sic 'em Bears!