Reflections with bluberries and sun....

As you can see....I have been neglected my blog for quite some time now. Here is my attempt to catch you all up as I eat a whole box of Costco blue berries and enjoy the Palm Springs sun! :)

Graduation:
Wow, what a crazy couple of weeks that was! I tried to do as much as I could those last couple of weeks by hanging out with friends, soaking up my last bit of education....:( which I am still pretty depressed about having to leave that....but the end had to come whether I wanted it to or not. towards the last couple of weeks of school I ended up going to Seattle to be in my friend Angela's wedding which was lots of fun, she looked OH so lovely. :) That weekend was extremely busy with travel and events going on. The day after the wedding I went and visited The Salon Professional in Tacoma. It's a great beauty school and I really liked the owner lady, her and her husband own the school and have been expanding a lot recently and are in the process of being accredited. I'm not sure if that's where I'll be going, but it's a thought and I really liked the lady. After that I flew back to school where the next day I did homework all day until I attended a basketball banquet. It was a lot of fun, or so I thought, however I was kind of confused as the guy I went with all hadn't really communicated much with me before the event, or after for that matter....so I have NO clue what that means....I had concluded not to worry too much about it though, boys confuse me so much. I'm tired of trying to figure them out. I'm trying to just focus on what I need to do now. But anyway, I was still thankful for the experience and happy I got to go.

Then a week went past of lots of pulling together multiple group projects, presentations, and papers, and that weekend we had the senior boat cruise! All the seniors at Whitworth were invited to a boat cruise on Lake Cour d'alene. It's a beautiful place and I got to drive up there with a whole bunch of the swimmers so it was great to be among friends! I saw a lot of my old and current house-mates there which was awesome and I was sure to step out on to the dance floor at one point for the only disco-type song that they played. It was the song "ladies-night." It made me smile. :) Then the next weekend was graduation weekend...man, what a weird feeling. It felt way too soon. I honestly didn't mind the school-work too much...I didn't like it of course, but I felt that it was better than having to work. I can be thankful though that I've found something that I really love to do and I am very excited to get that started. Before graduation though my parents came up on Saturday to see me at the senior slide-show awards assembly. Apparently I got nominated for the Dennis Spurlock memorial Award! It was a very big honor and it was so incredible, humbling, and encouraging to have been awarded this honor. God had really blessed me during my college experience and to have my coach and all the other coaches at my school give me this was amazingly humbling and honoring. Couldn't have asked for a better ending to my college sports career. Then ALL THREE of my sisters were able to make it out to my graduation on Sunday!!! This is an incredible feat for the Gresset girls to all be in one place, including both parents, and without their husbands, haha! It was perfect for me to have all of my sisters there to see me in my final day of school before I entered the work force. It reminded me of old times and I was so thankful that they all came out. Lindsey even took a day off of work to come up and help me pack! I'm so thankful for my sisters. seriously.

Well graduation was fun, I ended up sitting next to a guy who was undoubtedly buzzed because I was about to keel over from the overwhelming smell haha! We were packed in the arena like sardines! But oh well, he was apparently pretty nervous to graduate. Thankfully I did not trip, although I had on probably the highest heels in my possession. :) (Oh the pains we females will endure just to wear a cute pair of shoes...;)) When the president shook my hand and gave me my diploma thing, he said he enjoyed watching me swim!! I couldn't believe it! the president of Whitworth knew who I was and had watched me swim!! (This was definitely the icing on the cake to my graduation, for sure.) After graduation I tried to say good bye to as many people as I could that were still left wandering around, but it was REAL sad. I just wasn't ready to say goodbye yet. I had packed everything up that night and went to a couple of graduation parties to see some people off, but I still didn't feel as much closure as I wanted.

Apparently God was gonna make me wait to let the tears flow until the next day when I turned in my swim sweats to the head swim coach, Steve. Steve was the single way that I had gotten into Whitworth. I owed that man my whole college experience and I worked as HARD as I possibly could to please him and make my swimming for him as beneficial for him as possible. He was so sweet and said the kindest things to me about having me on the team and being blessed to have me...I just broke after that. My mom started crying and then I just SOBBED. I needed to do it. I had to get some emotion out. I always bottle my emotions up as best I can and God just knew he had to pull the plug and let'r-rip. Me, my mom and my grandma just sat there for a little while in the car and cried. Each for our own reasons really. Sometimes I wish I would cry more often. One of the girls on my team, Natalie cried as she said bye to me, and she gave me this women's study bible that meant SO much to me. I could tell that she really cared about me and I wish I could have cried to show her how deeply thankful I was for her and everything that we had gone through for the past three years (believe me, we've been through a LOT). I was just so frustrated though because I just couldn't let it all out yet; my body wouldn't let me and my mind was still trying to be in denial. The drive home was difficult, but it was good to drive only with Lindsey in the car. We had a good talk and she distracted me as much as possible. I just found it hard to pick up and leave when I've put so much effort and heart into the people at Whitworth. It was kind of my escape and now I don't have that "family" type atmosphere and security anymore. The week or two after graduation I was quite depressed. My mom's twin sister and her husband were staying at our house for the past couple of weeks because Dick had been really sick and needed to fly in from Alaska. Then I got real sick the day after I got back from school so that just kinda added to my misery at the time haha!

I went to the last day of BSF for this year which was cool. It was good to be around people I thought but it was a little surreal being there so soon and re-socializing myself with people i didn't really know very well coming from school where I had known a lot of people for a while now. But it was good and I'm excited for next year. I guess we're going to be studying the book of John! I'm interested to see what I'll learn. I'm also excited for the softball league that BSF has every summer, this time I'll be able to join for a whole season and not leave for school for the playoffs! I'm pretty stoked for that. I'm also hoping to be on a soccer team this summer too so I can keep a foot in sports still. I think I'd get extremely depressed if I got both school AND team sports taken away from me at this point. I even bought some soccer gear and a baseball glove at the Nike outlet here in California so I am SO totally motivated to play right now haha!

Now I'm in Palm Springs and have been shopping with mom like a MANIAC!!! Seriously, I have never shopped this much for this many days consecutively in my LIFE. Ridiculous. But I got a lot done and have gifts for family members birthdays and father's day coming up. I'm excited for Lisa and Rob to come down and join us with Hollace and Hannah tomorrow. I'll have two little cuties to play with! :) AND OH MY GOODNESS, BIG NEWS!!!! Yesterday me and my mom were shopping (of course) and Lindsey calls, and spills some crazy news to us!!!! Lindsey is PREGNANT!!! AGGGH!! I couldn't believe it. I was so excited, I started screaming in the changing room and then realized where I was and quieted down, haha, but it was hilarious. I'm so excited for her, I can't imagine having a baby, duh, but I'm so excited for her! haha! Now Hollace and Hannah are going to have COUSINS!!! Woo woo! Ok, so that's most of what I can think of right now...I know I left out a lot from the end of school, but I think I got most of the major things. ....and now I am down to the last couple of blueberries at the bottom of the box so I think I'll end real soon here. It'll be an interesting couple of months with the transition but I'm praying a lot that God will help me through this and I won't dwell on the past and can move into the future and gain (with time) more good friends. :) Blessings!