Aaron Echols, J.D.

Yikes, I am BE-HIND. Sorry about that, y'all! I guess we've just been having too much fun to blog.

Soooo, rewind a bit back to May 20th. That Thursday, Aaron attended his 3L breakfast. The breakfast is a great tradition at Pepperdine Law and it was fun to go this year as a staff member. The week of graduation was pretty crazy from this side though--the cap & gown pick up is done right outside my office and seeing as though these 3Ls were quickly transitioning to "alumni", I was a little busy! Anyway, back to the breakfast. The breakfast is like a senior breakfast in high school and the student body elects a female and a male student speaker to address the class. This is a casual, almost roast kind of speech but they are always really funny. The class also chooses a faculty speaker and that's fun too. Right before the breakfast, I managed to sneak in a few photos with two of my favoritest girls in the world.

Erin (ET) is no stranger to this blog. She was one of my bridesmaids and I remember like it was yesterday our first coffee date at Starbucks her first year. Since then, she has accomplished so much in her law school career. We just love her to pieces!

Miss Julie graduating gets me all teary-eyed because I met Jules even before she was a student. I was asked to give her a campus tour and the tour turned into a 5 hour date essentially, haha. We hit it off right away and I have been blessed by Julie's friendship ever since. She is actually moving to Washington State to study for the bar and she'll be going to New York for a year while her boyfriend gets his LLM in Tax at NYU. I'm hoping that I might be able to visit her while she's out there.

After the breakfast, Aaron and I headed down to Subway to have lunch and meet his family who had just flown in. After work, my aunt had just flown into LAX and so we drove into Santa Monica to hang out on the promenade and have dinner. After CPK (yum), we took everyone to Venice to see Hotel Erwin. We got there just in time for the sunset!



After the Venice trip, we headed back up to Calabasas and my parents had driven into town.

On Friday morning, I dropped Aaron off at Alumni Park and met all our families at our apartment before heading down the hill. Aaron was invited to a fancy lunch with the President and some other guests after graduation and with that honor came 2 reserved seats. My sweet, sweet friend Sophia works in University Events and was able to reserve seats for all of our guests. This was a huge, huge blessing! We didn't have to fight the crowds or get there early to save seats. Also, the seats were right in the front! I have to brag and say that I had the best seat though:) Aaron asked me to "hood" him so as his hooder, I got to sit right behind him. Score.


The last graduation with Uncle Ken (Starr)

Diploma time!




Post-grad photos with family




As I mentioned, after graduation, we had to split up our party because Aaron was only able to bring 2 people to the lunch. So, the rest of us went to have lunch at Coral Beach Cantina in Malibu. We beat the lunch crowd and had a great time.

We all spent the rest of the afternoon at the hotel pool in Calabasas before going to Duke's for Aaron's graduation dinner.

The next morning, we went to another Malibu hotspot, Paradise Cove for brunch before Aaron's family and my Annie headed to the airport. It was a beautiful day to be on the beach!




Saturday night, Aaron and I took my parents to the Dodgers game. They were playing the Tigers and so we didn't really have anyone to cheer for. Luckily, we were too busy enjoying the all you can eat food! We decided to buy tickets in the all you can eat pavillion in right field. I got a deal with a Pepperdine connection and so for $25 each, we saw the game and had unlimited dodgers dogs (hot dogs), nachos, peanuts, popcorn, sodas, and water. It was a lot of fun and a gorgeous day at the stadium.



On Sunday, all of our visitors were gone:( but our spirits were lifted in the afternoon when we headed up to Camarillo to Brad and Janelle's wedding at McCormick Ranch. Everything about this wedding was precious; it was an absolute pleasure and honor to be at their wedding.

How precious is Brad's face in this picture?


We got to spend the evening with some of our lovely friends (Catherine for me and Mitchell for Aaron!)


There is nothing better than witnessing an amazing marriage with your partner by your side. It just makes the whole thing real again.

Us and the new Bradley Benhams

This was a FUN wedding, yall. The Pepperdine people held it down on the dancefloor.


I work directly with Morgan, aka the head of the conga line. I told you my job was awesome.

Seriously though, how cute is this wedding venue?

Brad is from Abilene and we knew we were in the right place when we pulled up and saw the drink table from the road in.

What a weekend! So much to celebrate and we are so grateful for our families making the trip. We are beyond blessed!

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ... I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Romans 8:35, 38-39