Once upon a time {approximately 7-1/2 years ago},
a girl graduated from high school with a sparkle in her eyes and her head filled with anticipation at the bright future that lay ahead for her. She attended BYU for 2 semesters where she got straight A's and accepted into the nursing program. Then she started dating her future husband before heading off on
an 18-month mission to France.
She had a wonderful mission and came home eager to continue her relationship with Garrett, who had just graduated from BYU and was heading off to attend medical school at the University of Texas-Austin. They were
engaged before long and married shortly thereafter.
Cami was too late to get into the University of Texas at that point, so she started back to school at the local community college. Thus began "the grand run around". The community college would not accept her credits from BYU, despite the fact that she had a 4.0 GPA. She then embarked on retaking all of her general eds, in hopes that she could transfer to U.T. the next year. But the U.T. nursing program doesn't like transfer students and she was informed that they only very rarely accept transfer students from anywhere, so despite her continued 4.0 GPA, they turned her down.
She went to another year at the community college, but still really wanted to get a bachelor's in nursing. She applied to a few other schools, besides U.T., and against all odds was finally accepted to the University of Texas...where she had retake classes again.
Then came along a
sweet little baby.
And then Garrett got matched to a medical residency in Birmingham, which meant that they had to live in different cities for her last semester.
But despite all these odds....she finished.
On December 3rd, Cami graduated from the University of Texas-Austin with a bachelor's degree in nursing.
I had a
big Relief Society activity I was planning on November 29th and my surgery scheduled for December 7th, but we were excited to squeeze in a quick trip to Austin and celebrate this accomplishment with her in person.
It was a very quick trip, but we wouldn't have missed it for the world!
I very much enjoyed the bonus opportunity to snuggle this little sweetie as much as I could, especially since I won't be able to hold her (because of my surgery) when she's here for Christmas.
{NOTE: That photo may be one of my very favorites ever taken of me.}
We took lots and lots of photos....
Lucie was completely exhausted by the end of all the graduation / photo taking festivities, but we were still able to finagle some sweet smiles out of her. She is a baby who loves attention, action, and being with people. Maybe one our family's first true extroverts?
It's probably too early to make any of those kinds of declarations, but one thing's for certain, Lucie is certainly destined to be a little smarty pants.
WE enjoyed the opportunity to visit Austin one last time and to spend a quick weekend celebrating with Cami, Garrett, and Lucie!
We are so proud of our Cami Rose--for her tenacity, hard work, and ability to balance life, motherhood, school, church callings, etc. WE love her!
