Graduation to summer vacation

After we returned from Hawaii, we had more fun to look forward to, making it much easier to get on the flight home!

We successfully packed up our lives from the B307 apartment in Seattle and made our farewell to the Emerald city. You can tell from the red eyes and nose that it wasn't the easiest thing in the world for us to do :)

But, at least we got to drown our sadness in all sorts of great things. The first of which, was to walk across the stage and obtain my MD! I don't have all of the photos from the day saved on my computer or my phone, but just imagine the whole crew around this gorgeous table setting for a pre-ceremony brunch at the Georgian restaurant at the Fairmont Hotel!

 The ceremony was in Benaroya Hall. We got to walk down the isle to our seats and through all of the audience. We were welcomed with a standing ovation and it was pretty awe inspiring.

 I also had the opportunity to announce the award for one of my colleagues. It was an honor to be able to speak on his behalf.

 Chad Ulrich, pictured with me below, was a great colleague and we got to work together for a lot of different student organizations and societies.

It was truly surreal to be surrounded by my friends and those who have become my family too!

 One such member of this family is this girl--Varvara. She and I completed the gynecology oncology sub-internship at UW together and we call each other "blood sisters" as a result because we were at work from 4 am to 10 pm. How else could we have survived without the smiling and supportive faces of one another each day?

 Another acquired family member: Bri (and not pictured, her husband John) who were our neighbors for the past 4 years.

 And, who could forget Ben who is Varvara's husband) who helped maintain our laughter when we got together!

 Then, of course, there is my actual family! How adorable is Lawson these days?

 Danny, my classmate seen below with Tom will be graduating next year since he spent the last year in Kampala, Uganda completing a research project and generally being a life-and-world-changing human being!

I don't have all of the amazing group family photos from graduation day. After the party I moved on to another kind of party-- a bachelorrette party. Now, for the sake of keeping the events of the evening secret (as they should be, of course), I won't post many photos. But, I will say that we had an amazing evening that all started at this Moroccan restaurant in Seattle.

 We'll just say that the food was INCREDIBLE!

 And the entertainment wasn't too bad either :)

 With that, we had arrived at my final night in Seattle.

 Fortunately, I was able to take my mind off of it by taking a gorgeous sunset walk with Danny and Tom around Seattle.

To drown out the anxiety, fear, and sheer shock of moving to the other side of the country, I was able to head to the cabin for a little piece of summer while we celebrated the wedding of my classmate DeeDee and her (now husband) Matt!

They got married on Hayden lake at the country club and the rest of the "wine and magazine" crew, as my study group is known, were able to spend some quality time at the lake before saying our final farewells

 The weather was GORGEOUS and the tube was put to good use for sure!

 Tom served as our driver for the weekend, proving to give some nice (but rough, like we asked for) tube rides!

 We had a hard time cleaning up and leaving the lake, but I'd say we cleaned up pretty good don't you think?

 The guys did too.

 More photos of our fun (including us scoping out the wedding venue from the boat!)

 We also played this game at the cabin that guaranteed a bunch of laughs. We call it "positive reinforcement." Basically, the idea is that one or two people are "it" and they have some sort of activity that they need to complete. The trick is, they don't know what activity they are supposed to do, but everyone else in the room does! They walk in the room and then, through a series of "boo's" and cheers the people that are "it" slowly figure out what they are supposed to do. Here we see Anna and Oliver holding a moose wine holder and pretending to be Joseph and Mary holding baby Jesus.You can imagine that the path to get to this "scene" was  ridiculous :)

 Here we are on the shuttle to the wedding. A shuttle that turned out to be a bit more of a scenic drive around Lancaster that led to us being nearly late to the big event!

 But, we made it on time to a beautiful setting in front of the lake

 The gorgeous bride was truly in high fashion in this Vera Wang gown!

 Matt and DeeDee have a very diverse family with roots in Hawaii, Fiji, Ireland and more. Matt's uncle from Hawaii performed the ceremony with several Hawaiian traditions.

 TThey symbolically joined hands with waters from where they grew up--Hayden Lake and Puget Sound, combined with salt from Hawaii to join their families together. It was a beautiful ceremony.

 They joined together in a traditional hawaiian blanket (not that they needed it in 90 degree heat!)

 Mr. and Mrs. Souza! Although it's technically Dr. and Dr. Souza since Matt earned his JD last year and DeeDee just got her MD this year!

 They were so filled with joy that at one point they broke out into a dance, much before their official "first dance." It made my heart happy to see it!

 We dined in style and thoroughly enjoyed a night of laughing, love, and DANCING!

 Look at that happy face!

 Between courses at dinner we couldn't help but frolick in the rose petals to help celebrate. The girls did it first (sorry, can't find my photo at the moment) and the guys couldn't help but follow suit!

 Our party limo ride at the end of the night was the perfect way to end the evening!

More to come in my blog-catch-up about my dad and my road trip to Rhode Island and what the first few days of residency orientation have been like! I'm not sure I'll be able to keep with everything on this blog because my life is about to get INCREDIBLY BUSY, but I'll try!