Graduation

My December graduation was pretty anticlimatic; I just walked out of the testing center after taking my last final, called Matt and my mom, and then did a little happy dance all the way to my car in the frigid weather. BYU only has commencement ceremonies in April and August, so I wasn't sure if I was going to bother with it, but I'm so glad I did! Somehow, it managed to officially close that chapter, and let me tell you-it was nice to finally feel like I actually did graduate. Plus we got to celebrate, which is always fun! And the BEST part of the weekend? Matt surprised me by getting special permission to come out for my graduation--made it all worth it!

At least these ugly caps are good for something...

My cute fam...

Dear DALAJ, We missed the rest of you. Love, ash & liz

Sidenote: You know the gratitude stoles that you pay $30 for that make you look smart? Yeah, Liz and I might be regretting not shelling out some cash for those. But we have way better grades than the stole wearers anyway :-).

Back to the point of the post--the celebration!

My parents took me and Matt to Magleby's (my favorite Provo restaurant) on Friday night for my graduation dinner. So delicious.

Their chocolate cake is to DIE for (my fiance is, too!)...
Matt's parents were awesome and took his entire family out for dinner that night so that Matt and I could see everyone. We went to the new Firehouse Pizza in Centerville--yum!

I like this graduating business.

Since we can't get married yet...

...I'm living vicariously through my best friend, Liz. She's getting married in just 12 days and I'm not just counting down to the wedding day--I'm counting down the days until we'll get to see it on a weather forecast. I was in Colorado for the friend bridal shower so I hit up her neighborhood bridal shower last week. Isn't she gorgeous? She'll make such a beautiful bride.

Must Be Spring--Golf and a BBQ!

We had beautiful 70+ degree weather in Colorado Springs this past weekend, so Matt & I decided to take advantage of it! I'm a pretty good mini-golfer but have never been real golfing, so Matt began his quest to turn me into a golfer by spending an afternoon at the Academy's driving range. As you can see, he takes it pretty seriously:

Meanwhile, I just kept laughing/trying not to laugh so our driving range neighbors wouldn't hate me.

Needless to say, we have a LONG way to go before I'm ready to actually try the real deal... but we still had a blast! And Matt is still laughing at my golf swing.

After our little golfing adventure, we headed over to Jodie & Steve's. We had a delicious BBQ and loved just talking to Jodie & playing with their cute kids all night (keeping them up way past their bedtimes, oops!). The girls played outside, jumped on the tramp and worked on this fruit pizza......while the boys tossed a football, shot some hoops and flexed their muscles......and we all hung out together, of course! It was seriously the most fun we've had in the Springs this year! Thanks Jodie (and Preston, Taylor & Mason) for having us over!!! See you soon :-)

Go Falcons!

Air Force had their spring football game last Saturday and Matt did an AWESOME job!!! This is Matt (#16) getting one of his many first downs... He also had some nice blocks and a SWEET touchdown!

Matt's parents also came out but somehow all of our pictures with them ended up on their camera, so this is just Matt & I after the game... which was rather cold, despite the sunny skies.

Not a lot of football studs would roll up their sleeves and help out with the dishes like Matt did at the Nichols' house the next day.

After we finished the dishes we got to hang out just a little longer before having to leave for the airport... just another great weekend in Colorado!
Photo credit goes to CHASE for this one! (See Chase?)

Guess who came to Joshie's birthday party?

COSMO!!!

Cosmo & I are good friends so he did me the hugest favor and came over to celebrate my little brother Josh's 3rd birthday. This is how Joshie felt about it:

All of the little neighborhood kids & cousins came over in their blue to celebrate--super cute! Little Alice even had a little BYU cheerleader costume. It was so fun! We took pictures of all the kids with Cosmo in front of "Y Mountain." (And yes, we most definitely played "pin the Y on the mountain.")

He even brought the Cosmobile!

One final hug... I wish I had a picture of just Gabey Baby and Cosmo (without all the kids)--he LOVES "Mahmo" and has been carrying around pictures of Cosmo ever since the party.

Oh, and in case you were worried about my domesticity (you know, the whole "100%" thing), check out these footballs! Oreo cheesecake truffles, thank you very much.

SOME of that domesticity HAS to transfer over to cleaning... right?

And in other news...

It just needs to be said that last night’s game was the best championship game—of any sport—that I’ve seen in a long time. Seriously. I’m not a huge fan of either team, although I’ve generally liked Kansas ever since my cheerleading days when I fell in love with their “Rock, Chalk, Jayhawk” chant. But I was actually cheering for Memphis—how could you not? A Cinderella-type that actually deserves to be there. Memphis, however, fell apart in the final minutes of regulation and Kansas won it in OT.

The game (along with One Shining Moment, of course) reminded everyone why we LOVE March Madness so much! It also reminded me of one of the reasons I love my family so much—we love sports! And we love them TOGETHER :-). All of us (boys, girls, parents, babies) sat there on the edge of our seats, screaming at the television, analyzing the game and saying everything the commentators said before they said it (in my dream world, my dad replaces Dick Vitale). LOVE IT.

General Conference

We are so lucky to be able to listen to General Conference twice a year. This one was even more special because of the Solemn Assembly on Saturday morning. We only had two tickets to that session, so my dad took my 14-year-old brother, Christian. It was such a neat experience for him to be one of the few Aaronic Priesthood holders there in the Conference Center to stand and sustain our prophet, Thomas S. Monson. It was special at home, too, for all of us—Relief Society members, Young Women and primary children—to likewise stand and sustain President Monson. Matt & I feel such love and gratitude for him and the position he holds. What a blessing to know that the Lord guides this Church and that we are led by a true prophet of God.

The rest of Conference was equally uplifting, with many talks being just what we needed to hear. Again, it is such a blessing to be able to listen to the words of the Lord’s servants, and to be able to study them in the months following. General Conference is always such a treasure and we are so grateful for it!

Spring Break, Part 2

After that weekend, we came back to civilization and kept having lots of fun! I LOVE it when Matt gets to spend time in Utah because we get to be a normal couple for a few days, at least. A few highlights from this trip:

*Cinnamon breadtwists at Pizza Factory.

*Dinner with Liz and Ryan (at Chili's, of course, so we could watch the Sweet 16).

*A group date with a couple of Matt's BFFs. Just a few Air Force boys "makin' ends meet at the Creamery." Yep.
*We tore it up in mini-golf!

*Matt's family party, where we taught Matt's cute nieces a little swing dancing and then played the Newlyweds game with the adults. All those late-night phone calls paid off--we got almost all of the answers right and eventually won with the final question: "How much of the housework would your husband say he does (or will do)?"

Our winning answer: 100%! I'm obviously a LITTLE more excited about this than Matt is...

Southern Utah Pics

Good ol' Southern Utah

Matt's spring break was just in time for my big family get-together in Southern Utah. We spent Friday at Zion's with my dad and 3 of my brothers and then spent Saturday playing and rolling Easter eggs with my aunts, uncles and cousins. It was Matt's first time at Zion's AND his first time rolling Easter eggs, so our little vacation was kind of a big deal in the Graf world.

When people love each other, they get a blog.

Matt’s comment the other day after checking out some of our family members’ and friends’ blogs: “When people love each other, they get a blog.” Pretty sure he was mostly being kidding, but then he kept bringing it up & I realized it would actually be a good way for his family to get to stay posted on his life (seeing as it takes him an average of 2 weeks to respond to their questions on the family website, despite logging on every day). Plus, my family will want us to have one sooner or later…

So, Matt, I love you! Here's your blog.