Last of the graduation week festivities

I know I've already said a LOT about graduation but I have just a few more random pictures from our big week that I wanted to post. First off, Joe and I just LOVED having both sets of our parents in town! Having us all together plus Nate & Lori (and even Ben & Caitlin when they were free!) just made the week such a party and so much fun. My mom arrived first and we spent a day in Georgetown together and then Joe's parents flew in followed by my Dad. We had family dinners, went out to eat, spent some time at the mall, went on a couple of walks, and mostly just hung out. But with all the graduation stuff going on we were fairly busy and it all just went by way too fast.

As a side note, I just have to provide a little explanation about my cookie. In case you haven't heard of Great American Cookies it is located in the Columbia mall and they do those big cookie things with frosting. Since we've lived here I've never gotten one but I grew up with one in my Dubuque, Iowa mall and am somewhat obsessed. For the past 4 years I have kept trying to come up with a sufficient reason to get one, since they aren't exactly cheap. But every time a birthday or something would roll around I would change my mind and decide no, I am trying to eat healthy right now and the last thing I need to do is eat an entire huge cookie (since let's face it, that's probably what was going to happen).

Well this time I decided that graduation was THE occasion and I was ready for my cookie, no matter what. We had to make a special detour on the way home from graduation in Baltimore to get it, but here it is:
Looking pretty excited, huh? I was just hoping the cookie would actually live up to my highly-set expectations since I had been having trouble with that lately (see last two posts). :) Here's a picture so you can see what it said.

And the verdict?? Yes, it was delicious. I think I probably ate like a third of it myself. Based on how rough my first week of bar study has been (very mild compare to how it will get) I'm thinking that taking the bar at the end of July will be sufficient cause for another cookie. What do you think??

Another big part of graduation day was our amazing graduation dinner. I chose to eat at the Grille at Harryman House ... this was another part of the day that I had "high expectations" for and fortunately it did not disappoint one bit. We all had delicious meals and appetizers and the meal was very special and unique, which was what I was hoping for. Thank you to our parents who were kind enough to treat us to all these fun occasions as a celebration of us entering the "real world." Hopefully someday we can return a few of the favors. :)

The group outside the restaurant:

That night we hung out, played games, ate my cookie (w/ ice cream for those who wanted it) and I gave Joe his "graduation present." I just wanted Dr. D to be able to see his official new name in print whenever he felt like it so I thought this nameplate would be appropriate:

The next day we had a blast taking our family to hunt valley to the Amish market (love that place) for breakfast/lunch/way more food that you would ever need to eat!! So delicious though.

After lunch we stopped at the NCR trial for a walk. It was a perfect day.

We also stopped at Wegman's ... also a bit of a novelty ... and got food for Sunday dinner and just enjoyed the gorgeous drive. The next day was Sunday and my Dad had to fly out right after church while the other 3 flew out early the next morning. Joe and I, however, spent the day getting ready for our very highly anticipated Mexico vacation!!

OUR BIG DAY

Well we are freshly returned from our graduation trip to Cancun and I can't wait to share some pictures! But first I need to document our actual big day, May 15, 2009: the day Joe became Dr. Dastrup and I became a J.D.!!

The day began with my alarm going off at 5:30 and then leaving the house at 6:40 to grab seats for Joe's dental school hooding ceremony at the Hippodrome in downtown Baltimore. The crew included me, Joe, my parents, Joe's parents, and Nate & Lori. We got there just in time to get good seats and then I went with Joe to get him ready, take some pictures with his friends, and wait for the ceremony to begin.

During the ceremony I had a special seat on the front left part of the auditorium where the "hooders" sat. I didn't know much about hoods until that day, but here's the deal: people receiving advanced degrees are "hooded" with a long decrative hood displaying the school's colors. Normally faculty members do the hooding, but for the dental school's ceremony the students had the chance to choose any person to hood them that held an equivalent or higher degree. And I got to hood Joe!!! My mom thought it was terrific and I guess it was pretty cool. Lots of students had Dads or Grandpas hooding them but I only noticed one other dental student being hooded by his wife!
I tried to watch the first few students being hooded to figure out what I was supposed to do. What a moment!

I can barely remember the program anymore (I think Cancun wiped my brain clean) except that it was very nice. The senior class president gave a thoughtful speech and the hygiene students and those graduating from specialty programs were also recognized. On the way out Joe gave us a triumphant fist-pump. Go Dr. D!

I was super excited to greet Joe afterward since he had accidentally ignored me after I hooded him and beelined it back to his seat instead. I thought maybe I had messed up on the hooding or something?? Turns out he was just in the zone and thought I had turned back the other way instead of following him off stage.

Me and Gina (Joe's mom) with the good-looking Dr.

Us with Joe's parents ....

Us with my parents ... It was so fun to have such an occasion to have both sets of parents in town together! We had a lot of fun.

And of course with Nate & Lori! Lori did a fabuous job helping to document the day. Thanks for taking a day off just for us! :)

And here's Joe with the majority of his fellow LDS dental school buddies. He knew 4 of them (2 not in this picture) before dental school and they were a great group.

Us with our close friends the Austins! Two days later they headed to Tennessee for an oral surgery program and we are going to miss them like crazy.

And with our close friends the Skinners. They are headed to AZ and we are excited for them and are glad we'll hopefully get to see lots of them in the future.

Group picture with the wives ... yes we all should be congratulated for successfully getting through these tough 4 years!

Just the wives (well some of them) ...

After the picture taking we hurried over to the law school a block away and caught the tail end of a brunch that had been going on all morning. We had just enough time to quickly eat some eggs, potatoes and french toast before the family had to get back to the Hippodrome to get seats for my hooding ceremony and I had to be to Westminster Hall to get lined up.

The law students and faculty then processioned to the Hipprodrome which was exciting. It was really happening! I got to ever-so-briefly say hi to a few of my professors on the way into the building and then the program began. The law school and dental school programs were quite different. The day class president giving the speech was a friend of mine and she did a great job. We also heard from Congressman Elijah Cummings who had a lot of great thoughts, but his style was a little intense for my taste (think Baptist preacher). Then there were the hoodings ... unfortunately I didn't get to pick my hooder and was hooded by two professors I didn't know.

After that the graduates walked back to the law school where I met up with my family. For the next few minutes I had a bit of a hard time since I realized the day was not going how I wanted and had envisioned. Because of the way it was set up, the time to see friends and professors was during the brunch (which we missed), and after the ceremony everyone just scattered and I couldn't find anyone. It's hard to explain why I was so bummed but I just was. Several of my professors have meant a lot to me over these 3 years. I respected them greatly and learned so much from them and I know they thought highly of me as well, and I was excited to have them meet my husband and family, to say thank you, and hear words of congratulations which would have been more meaningful than most since they actually knew how hard I'd worked. Anyway, that didn't work out and it's okay. But it did put a damper on things for a few minutes which I why I don't look so ecstatic in these pictures (and why they aren't very many of them). :)

I was happy that we got to see Brigham and Kristen. We have been in the same ward for the past 3 years and Brigham and I were the only two LDS students in the law school. Funnily enough, we ended up being in the same "small section" first year and had lots of classes together. They have been great friends and we'll miss them but wish them the best of luck in Salt Lake!

Joe and me ... walking off the campus as graudates. I still can hardly believe it!

After that we took a trip to the Bookstore for some t-shirts and made short stop in Columbia on the way home (more on that in the next post). By the time we got back we were completely exhausted and had dinner reservations in not too long ... but we stopped to take some pictures with both Joe and me in our gowns since we knew we'd never get around to doing it another other day. Here they are!

Displaying the hoods - I love this picture.

Pretty sweet jumping picture.

Don't know what this is supposed to be ...

Gotta throw the hats!!

Oh yeah ... can't forget this one. :)

That's it! We are not students anymore!!

My Ode to Law School

Wow it has really been a crazy 3 years. I still can hardly believe it's over. Let's back up a bit though ..... I have wanted to go to law school since before the third grade. Ever since I made up my little 8-year-old mind so long ago, I honestly don't think I ever doubted or wavered with what I wanted to do. I knew I had to find a smart, driven, and extremely tolerant guy to support me through this dream of mine and luckily I found this one:

We got married right before moving to Maryland where I took the LSAT and applied to school, so he's been with me through all of it. And by "it" I mean a completely intense, exhausting, fantastic, exhilerating, frustrating, fanatical, and extremely challenging 3 yrs. But there's next to nothing I would change about it. I was stretched to my absolute limit, but as a result I have learned and gained so much. I feel amazing! However, I don't think I could have done it without the constant support of my incredible Joe, my wonderful family and friends, and a lot of answered prayers. I'm a lucky girl.

So last Thursday night, the day before graduation, I was invited to an awards reception at the law school. I had a pretty good idea of the award I thought I'd be receiving. I have been #1 in my class throughout my 3 law school years and although I hadn't received my official rank following this last semester, my grades basically couldn't have been better so I went to the receiption feeling confident. :) Here I am with my good study-buddy waiting for the awards to begin!

That night there were close to a dozen awards being given out relating to leadership and scholarship. Finally we got to the point where the #2 and #1 students would be announced. I listened as the Dean announced the name of the #2 student and as I heard her say "Lindsey Dastrup" my underlying fear became a reality. In shock, I walked up the stairs to the podium with a my jaw clenched and head down and then pasted the biggest smile I could come up with across my face just in time to greet the Dean and turn around to face the audience. I was later told I hid any disappointment or dismay very well, but when I look at this picture I can see it loud and clear. I didn't even think to look at my family. As I walked down the stairs I remember thinking "well this is going to be embarrassing as my mom already took the liberty of posting that I was #1 on her blog." My next thought as I sat back down was: "well who the heck IS #1??"

What happened next is .... the Dean of Student Affairs approached the podium and she and the Dean had a little pow-wow. A couple minutes later the Dean announced that there had been a mistake and that "Lindsey Dastrup is actually #1 in the class." All I could think was: relief, relief, relief, relief!!! Yes ... I know deep down that being #1 vs. #2 makes absolutely NO difference for who I am and for what is important. But I also have had this goal for a long time and it would have been a bit of a blow. So I didn't get my "moment" (smiling from head to toe, finally knowing that this crazy goal I've had has actually happened) captured on camera since I was back in my seat. But I did go up again later as they announced and took pictures of the top 5 people and top 10% (around 24 people ... there were 247 people in my graduating class).
And my happiness was captured as I got to greet Joey. It sure has been a long road and he has put up with so much!

We all continued to be a little surprised by what had just transpired (here's Joe reenacting his reaction). My Dad said he was praying hard that I would hold it together and Joe was just hoping I'd be okay with the outcome. We laughed about it for the rest of the night and I really do think it makes a good story. :)

Here's Dean Cobb (the Dean who corrected things) explaining to us how the mistake was made (something about an earlier draft where she accidentally typed the #1 name first instead of second). I told her not to worry about it ... no major harm done.

Here I am with the pleased parents (who make it clear that they really don't care whether I graduate with an award or not). It was so funny because my dad had been bugging me the last couple of days to make sure I wouldn't fall apart if it turned out I was #2 (even though I wasn't even close ....). He teased me that he had to pay the Dean money to get her to do that to me.

And the happy in-laws. It was so good to have them there!

Afterward we had a little reception with drinks and hors d'oeuvres and I got to chat with a few of my favorite professors.

And we enjoyed some time in the lovely law school courtyard.

Then we had to hurry home and iron our dresses and robes for graduation the next day (I got up at 5:30 and we left the house at 6:40!). The celebrations were officially underway.

The Day Has Finally Come ...

Ok so Lori may have used this post title to announce her pregnancy (YAY!!!) but in this context it means something quite different: I am DONE with law school!! After three long, crazy years I am done. All the exams and papers that have been the focus of my life for so long are now in the past. I don't know who is happier for me to be done, me or Joe. Did we really ever think we'd actually be here???!? It is hard to believe. I finished on Wednesday night and the past few days have been wonderful! We've had a lot of things planned so there hasn't been a lot of sitting around time but it just feels so good for my mind to be free to think about normal, everyday things (like what to wear to graduation!) instead of being constantly forced to focus, focus, focus. Ok so now to the other news: Joe is DONE with dental school!! What a relief for him. He has worked crazy hard as well and we are both so excited to be finishing together. In case you want to actually see our excitement I've got this to prove it: Lori found us these crazy 2009 sunglasses in honor of our upcoming big day (and said we should probably take a picture for the blog since it has been neglected for months). Yes it definitely has and I am so happy to say I am BAAAAACKK!!!

Here is a picture of me and my darling prego sister-in-law. I'm excited I get my life back in time to start helping her get ready for this new baby girl!! (Ok it's not really getting my life "back" but more like allowing myself to have a life outside of school. I'll definitely admit I'm the one who chose to devote myself to school all the time. But I love law school and sadly I just don't know another way to do it!)

Although I don't have many pictures of all the fun we've been having so far (going out to a celebration lunch, hitting up an awesome birthday party, spending time with great friends who will be moving away soon, playing soccer, and washing the car) I have a few random pictures taken on today's beautiful Sunday afternoon walk. We were playing a friendly game of catch which suddently seemed to get a little rough .... I think this picture is hilarious because Joe is coming at me full speed and the look on my face is like I'm terrified out of my mind or something - maybe about to break down into tears.

Evidently he didn't really have violent intentions because here I am smiling.

Then Caitlin (my sister-in-law-in-law, or something like that) came in for the tackle. Don't worry I got her back later on.

And last of all here we are looking tough. Maybe?

Ahhhhh it is so nice to sit on the couch and blog again. I am already starting to block out the sheer craziness that has been my life for the past few months and will be ready to go at it again in a few weeks!! Good thing because although I've just about got my J.D., I still have to pass the BAR in order to add "Esquire" to the end of my name. Oh joy! But I'm not worrying about that at all, I'm just thinking about these next couple of weeks and how fabulous they are going to be! I can't WAIT to hang out with my parents and in-laws who are coming into town soon. This kind of occasion calls for some serious party time!!!!! Life is great!