My Slaw is a Master!

In case you dont know what that title means, it is the nickname Deanna gave me recently. I forgot where she heard it but its pretty funny! (Slaw = sister-in-law)

Well as mentioned in the previous post, not only did Matthew just graduate with an advanced degree, Deanna did as well! Two weeks ago, Deanna graduated from Abilene with her Masters Degree in Missions. She along with a few other families have been training for over 2 years for a church planting mission in Concepcion, Chili. They are currently being funded by a church in College Station for this last year leading up to their departure in January of 2011 and they are all in the process of trying to get funding for their time in Chile. I was trying to post the link for you to read about their team but I guess they removed the promotional thing from the church website. Wah, wah :( But anyway, we are all so proud of her and the team and all their plans to do great work for God there. I know they are getting excited and nervous and I would just like to solicit the prayers of my friends for their team as they make their final preparations for this mission. So here are a few pics from her big weekend!!!!

Deanna getting hooded (and she found out later all the hood were upside down, oops!)

Post ceremony pictures:

John and Monica (the proud parents)

Aunts and uncle

Trina and Deanna visiting at the awesome burger joint we went to after the ceremony.

And for dinner, we went to this cute restaurant in the country. This band was the entertainment for the evening. They played lots of classic country tunes and it was cool that their bass player was a woman! Never seen that before.

John and Monica being silly and hiding their chins :)

They had all the saying on the trim of the ceiling and this one was the most unique and I had never heard it before.

The whole clan at the end of the evening (minus Monica, I guess she took the picture),

And our ever necessary bed picture. We probably could have squeezed John on there dont you think?

On Sunday, we cooked brunch for the family for a mini-Mother's Day Celebration. We made bacon and carrot cake pancakes. They were sooooo good!

And one last group picture...let us not forget our doggies :)

Congratulations again Deanna! I am so proud and honored to be your s-law and will be sad when you move but look forward to coming and visiting you! I am glad we got to see you two weekends in a row and I cant wait for WALTONIA!

Graduations all around!

Well as most of you know, we have been quite the busy traveling bees lately! Rather than go in chronological order and start with vancouver posts, I am going to mix it up a bit and start with this last weekends celebration since it is fresh on my mind and not as many pictures to choose from (the real reason)!

OU's 118th commencement ceremony was on Friday and Matt got to participate, even though he isnt quite finished yet. He still has his thesis to defend in a month or two but it was a great celebration weekend none-the-less. I have been so excited about this weekend that I could hardly sleep on Thursday and Friday. Way back in January, I asked off for those days so that I could get things together for the celebration and be able to accompany him to all the festivities in Norman on Friday. The first of which was at The National Weather Center for just the graduate college. They had some awesome food for us and Dean Williams gave a mini speech in front of the weather globe projecting the weather for the past couple of weeks.

Deanna is standing by the tornado measuring machines from Twister

The reception ended earlier than expected so some people walked around campus and we ran some errands. Matt is standing in front of one of many statues dressed in robes.

Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate and the ceremony was moved to Lloyd Noble instead of the football stadium. Here we are freezing in line while the adults waited in the car for a little while longer :)

This Scottish bagpipe band played the processional music. I LOVE bagpipes!!

These indian head dresses were awesome! (and dave if you read this, i immediately thought of your facebook pic when i saw them and laughed at an inappropriate time)

Matt and Dr. Glathofer walking up to the hooding.

Matt and his new BFF David Boren! The doctorate candidates were the only ones who got to be hooded and walk on stage (besides the super smart undergrads).

Deanna is making good use of the glow sticks here at the end!

Dr. Glatzhofer reinacted the hooding since I couldnt see it live and the dude mispronounced Matt's name (however that is possible). And we could barely hear him at that.

This is one of my favs!

We got to go down to the floor for a bit afterward and take a few more pics.

The whole group that was able to go to the ceremony. They didnt give us enough rain tickets so my mom and grandpa couldnt come :(

And then when we got home late, we started working on the rest of the cake preparations. Here is Matt attempting to make his Ferrocene molecule that wasnt to be. But good try Matty! I didnt post a pic but Shay and I had quite the time trying to roll out the fondant. Apparently the trick is to use shortening of somesort not powdered sugar which one website suggested. We finally got it on the second try but as you will see later, it wasnt thin enough.

The girls decorating flowers, dejavu eh?

We borrowed all this cool glassware from Matt's lab for the table decor except the test tube racks, I bought those on Ebay.

I made these nerdy element placemats too. I think I just made like 10 different ones and lots of copies.

Dinner was catered by Mama Roja's and it was delicious! They need to package their food better because we had an incident with the beans but not a major problem by any means, just a big mess!

Liesel and I got to hang out momentarily for the first time. I havent ever seen her and her parents since before she was born! I am a bad friend :(

Friends and family

(p.s. Mom you are starting to semi-smile like grandma again :))

And here is the cake. It was a collaborative effort by all. Katie Rowten made the figurines, Deanna and I made the sheet cakes, Shay and I rolled the fondant, and I wrote the table elements and "strategically" placed the figurines to cover up my mistakes. It was a successfuly first attempt at using fondant in my opinon. And as I told many of my friends, I was pleased with the outcome enough to not throw it in the trash and go to Cheesecake Factory. I was annoyed by the sagging sides though. I guess our fondant wasnt thin enough and made it to heavy. I dont know. None-the-less, Matt loved it and that makes me happy!

Here you can see Matt's Houston team logos, his rubberband ball, signature yellow hat and sick duct tape sandals which he wore most of college and we still own.

His trombone, some frisbees (for frisbee golf of course), and some molecules.

A top view. I origianally wanted to shape the whole periodic table but it would have wasted too much cake. It worked out well anyway, so we could put all the stuff on it.

Ta-Da!

The table decor

Matt ate the head off of himself before we served cake.

"Let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor"

Grant and Cary played most of the evening and Matt sat in for a couple of songs. He hasnt played in like 6 months, which is more than I can say for myself.

The boys popped the balloons at the end of the night. It sounded like we were being attacked with all the echoing.

Shay is excited, cant you tell.

I forgot I bought silly string for everyone to get Matt with but Shay, Deanna and Rob took care of that just before we left.

Well it was a whirlwind of a weekend but it was so much fun! I love hanging out with our family and friends and I am sooooo proud of Matthew!! He has worked so hard and is almost finished, just the thesis left to defend sometime in June or July and he will officially be Dr. Matt! Congratulations again my sweet husband and thanks for working so hard always (even though it isnt official :)!!! I love you!

Next post: Deanna's graduation, which was actually the week before Matt's.