John's Graduation

Three years ago John applied for Nursing school and didn't get in.  He applied again a few months later and again was rejected.  The third time he applied he branched out and was finally accepted.  He drove to Salt Lake for school a few times a week for nearly 2 years as he attended Eagle Gate College.  Yesterday, he graduated.  When he started two years ago, the end seemed very far away.  Nevertheless, it came!  I am so proud of my husband for all the hard work and dedication he showed.  He had some of the top grades in his class and everyone he worked with had great things to say about him.  He really has found something he loves and that he's good at.  Out of the 19 other students in his graduating class, they chose John and 1 other person to speak at the ceremony.  What an honor!  John loves to speak and he's good at it too!  Someone told us he was the unofficial valedictorian!  He drove up early and I rode up a little later with his parents.  We got there a good 20 minutes before things started.

Here's where the story gets really... interesting.  Ezekiel was doing really well... I made him a bottle and fed it to him while we were waiting for the ceremony to start.  He's always pretty mad when the milk runs out but thankfully there was a lot of talking and noise so no one really noticed his crying.  I had him sitting on my lap and after a few minutes... he was filling his diaper.  Now, he's at a stage where he only poops every few days.  I couldn't believe he had picked this moment to do it.  Minutes before the graduation ceremony.  So, I picked him up and swiftly took him to the bathroom to change him.  The bathroom was out of paper towels so I used my changing mat in my diaper bag to lay him on, on top of the changing table.  I pulled off his pants and got stuff on my hands...  He had blown out his diaper!  All over his pants, his onesie, and now my hand.  I grabbed out the wipes I had packed and noticed I only had about 5... I knew it wouldn't be enough.  I frantically stripped him all the way down and tried to clean him up managing with the few wipes I had.  He's wailing and kicking, naked, as I'm stressing out about the mess, lack of cleaning supplies, and praying that I don't get anything on my new dress.  It went fairly successfully.  He had to sport some casual back up clothes instead of the nice dressy clothes I had him in.  He eventually stopped crying and did amazingly well the rest of the night.  We got back into the event room about a minute before things started.  I was so relieved!  I had managed my first real scary outing-with-the-baby.   Panic mode subsided and I was able to enjoy the rest of the night.

The ceremony was really nice.  I got some pics and videos that should show you more than I could tell you about how things went.  The blonde woman was the other speaker and the girl playing the harp was a student as well.  The girl who John has his arm around, who is not me, is Lindsey.  She and John carpooled and did many study sessions together.

Here are the videos.  This first one is John's talk.  It's kinda long but worth watching!  The next one is his name being called and him receiving his "diploma".  The last is a candle lighting ceremony representing the times Florence Nightingale would check on soldiers in the night.  She is known as the mother of nursing, if ya didn't know.  What a great day!