Graduation, Vacation, and Anniversary!

Alright, so I have been in college for four years now and yes, it's true, I have two associates degrees. Can you believe that the RN is just an associates? I feel like it's hard enough to be a master's degree. Nonetheless, I will graduate again, just a year from now with my Bachelor's of Science in Nursing. So I'm not too worried about it.

It has been a busy week. Jared and I celebrated my graduation by going to California for the week! We rented a car and drove all the way (we didn't think either of our cars could make it - Also, I got us out of the underage driving fee).

First, we stopped at Zions National Park and we hiked! We didn't do Angel's Landing again, but we found a few other pretty hikes to do instead.

I thought the rock stairs were really cool!

Fun little cliff

After Zions, we were off to Mesquite to golf Wolf Creek. It was like golfing at a national park. Every single hole was picturesque! Needless to say, Wolf Creek is now our favorite golf course. Jared shot a 76 and I shot a 77.

Jared really liked this hole because he had to hit it over that mountain!

 d

(just fyi: These are my practice swings, not a swing and a miss)

This is the look I give Jared a lot on the golf course

There were tons of waterfalls. This one is on the 18th hole

After we finished golfing in Mesquite, we headed down to Palm Springs, CA. We golfed at PGA West, the Nicklaus course. This course was pretty unique. Jack Nicklaus likes raised greens or plateaus, so all the greens were raised up and if you missed it, then it was a tough chip shot, or bunker shot. Jared had a fun chip in from a bunker at this course. He played really good at this course and shot a 73. I played mediocre and shot somewhere in the mid-80's.

We love island greens

This is Jared's approach at the ninth green. The 9th green and the 18th green were connected. It was weird.

Okay, so I don't think it was really that hot! However, It was over 100.

After Palm Springs, we drove to a shady little hotel in Sylmar, CA. It was only 10 minutes away from Six Flags Magic Mountain, where we spent our next day. We rode all of the roller coasters 2 or 3 times each! It was not crowded at all. We didn't take anything with us into the park because it's a hassle to find somewhere to put your bag and we didn't want anything to fall out of our pockets. I really wanted to buy one of the pictures of us on the roller coaster though! Jared's face was priceless. I made him ride the fastest, scariest roller coaster with me 3 times. It was a hoot!

After Six Flags, we headed down to Murrieta, CA. We stayed with my Uncle and Aunt who live there. We loved being at their home and enjoyed the company of their kids. The next day we drove to San Diego, which is about an hour away (depending on the traffic) and we played Torrey Pines golf course!

Torrey Pines has a beautiful view of the ocean!

This was our favorite par 3, hitting toward the ocean

My only complaint about Torrey Pines was that it was way too long from the women's tees! It was about 1,000 yards longer than I'm used to playing. Almost all the par 4's felt like par 5's. Also, I wasn't hitting my 3 wood or driver very good, so that didn't help at all. I ended with a whopping 98 on my scorecard. Jared played a lot better than me, however and ended up with an 80.

The day after Torrey Pines, we played a course in Temecula called Journey at Pechanga. We didn't expect too much from this course, but were pleasantly surprised! It was way ritzier than I thought it would be, the course was in perfect condition, it had some quirky holes, fun elevation changes and a great course overall.

We like trees in the middle of the fairway

Good view of the city from the top of this par 4

Another big tree in the middle of the fairway

This is the 18th green. It was shaped very odd.

The next day, I went scuba diving for the first time in the ocean! It was a blast! I saw two sharks, they were both sevengill sharks and I guess it's pretty rare to see them. There were tons of sea lions too! There was a baby sea lion that swam in circles around me for a while. I also saw jelly fish, crab, and tons of other fish and a forest of kelp. It was really fun. I was a little bit nervous, because I thought I would freeze, but it's amazing how warm I was inside of the wetsuit and all the gear. After scuba diving, Jared and I hung out at the beach for the day. We pretty much spread out the beach blanket and took a two hour nap. It was really pleasant. Then we decided to pack up and start heading home.

We stopped in Vegas for the night and thanks to my awesome mom, she found us a good deal on a nice hotel (My mom should be a travel agent. She is the best at saving money while traveling. Actually, she is just the best at saving money. It can be scary interesting). The next morning we slept in and then went to see Bodies, the Exhibition. I have seen it a couple times, but thought Jared would really enjoy it, since he has done dissections before as an anatomy lab instructor. He is basically an expert when it comes to anatomy. He loved the Bodies exhibit! He would get really excited and start explaining everything to me in detail. Can I just say that he is the smartest person I know? He will be a great doctor one day. He's so personable, down to earth, brilliant, kind, caring, thorough, and hard working. Last semester he took 19 credits of really difficult pre-requisites for med school and got a perfect 4.0. He. is. the. best. And that's why I married him.

We just celebrated our two year anniversary on monday, May 6th! We didn't do anything too fancy, since we just went on a big trip to California. We ate lunch at Olive Garden and then went to see Iron Man 3 later in the evening. It's crazy to think we have been married for two years, it makes me feel old. I told Jared that since we have been married for two years, he basically has an associates degree with a major in JaNae. I don't know what degree he will have when we hit our 25 or 50 year anniversary. I'm sure we can make some fancy name up for that.