Summer Part 1

The first weeks/month of summer consisted of a slew of graduations, beginning with ours. Brenden graduated with a pink tassel on his cap indicating his degree in music. I had a yellow tassel on my cap indicating I graduated in the same college as everyone else. My degree is in family studies but everyone in the College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences wore yellow tassels so I could have graduated in sociology, psychology, anthropology or neuroscience for all that that yellow tassel indicated. Our sister-in-law, Heidi, also graduated with us. College graduation means lots of family in town. Brenden's parents and grandparents on his mother's side and my whole family came up for our graduation. My whole family includes my parents, my sister and two brothers, my aunt and uncle and my two cousins, and my other uncle on my mom's side. Boy, that was an adventure. And you know what? I didn't even take any pictures. I didn't take a single picture of my or my husband's graduation or of all the fun we had with our family while they visited us. But don't you worry, I got some pictures of the important events in our lives.
For example, the first time we used our wok (complete with two pairs of 3D glasses):



And the first time I went crazy during our marriage:



Yeah. The important events. It's a good thing our families knew we would someday want memories of our graduation so they took pictures for us.

Shortly after graduation, Brenden and I packed up our belongings (with the help of many kind and patient friends) and drove out to Texas. Quick story about this before I move on to bigger and better things (i.e., Texas). The morning Brenden and I moved out we left our apartment around 6am. Our landlady was going to come by our place later in the morning to make sure we got all of our stuff out (we did) and did our move-out cleaning (we didn't). Around 10am, an unknown Utah number popped up on my phone. I don't answer calls if I don't recognize the number so I let it ring. The caller left a voicemail. I checked the voicemail. It was our landlady. And she was livid. So here's the deal, I thought Brenden was the last person out of our apartment and he thought I was the last person out of our apartment. Basically, we don't know whose fault it was but one of us left all of the lights on and the front door of our apartment wide open for a number of hours that morning. Luckily, our landlady's shock and rage at our absolute mindlessness only extended to that little mishap. In her angry voicemail she didn't even MENTION the fact that the apartment wasn't clean at all. And while I really don't like being the cause of anyone's severe frustrations, I found the voicemail a little humorous, though I must admit, I was very embarrassed. She called to vent. And as anyone who has ever been angry and looked back on their experience being angry knows, we can be pretty hilarious when we're angry. My older brother caught one of my angry fits on video and, guys, it's hilarious. Anyway, she didn't offer any solutions, she didn't threaten further deductions from our security deposit, and she didn't even ask us to call her back. There's wasn't much for us to do except be very, very glad we weren't moving back.

We were going to live with Brenden's family in Houston and work at Dad McQuay's business for the summer. This was probably one of the best summers ever because of this. You may think I'm kidding, but I do not joke. At all. Ever. No, but, seriously. We were treated wonderfully at Brenden's house. We had dinner every evening at a decent hour and I didn't have to make it because I was at work (that is, when we went to work). And we had clothes that were dirty and then they were clean and folded and hung on hangers. And guys, I had been doing my own laundry since I was like three years old (okay, that's a total lie) so I couldn't even remember what it was like to not run out of underwear (the sign that it was time to do laundry). GUYS, THIS SUMMER I DID NOT RUN OUT OF UNDERWEAR. And that is why it was a glorious, wonderful summer. (Quick shout out to Mom McQuay!) Well, that and getting to see our family all the time. Yeah, maybe it was family that made it a glorious, wonderful summer. But not running out of underwear- that was a close second place.

Once we got into Houston, we stopped at the nearest Whataburger and rejoiced in the glory that is that restaurant. Later that week we saw my sister perform in her school's production of Bye, Bye Birdie which rivaled even the best Broadway comedy productions in the world for sheer hilarity. O'Connell's theater productions rarely go without incident. Even under my reign as drama club president, major props were forgotten. Example: short scene with two people (me and another girl), a chair, and a desk set (as in desk calendar, nice pens, etc). The chair was already on stage; the main prop: desk set. We forgot the desk set. HOW DID WE FORGET THE DESK SET?! At Stef's performance prerecorded music went out mid-song, microphones didn't work, the lights went up while the set crew was still setting up the next scene, the set fell apart during the scenes. Apparently, this was still better than the year they tried to have someone fly into the scene on a harness and rope. That show didn't even get to finish since the kid flew across the stage into backstage right into the desk holding the computer being used for all of the music. Oh, O'Connell drama club. Those were the days.

A week after Bye, Bye Birdie, my baby sister, Stefanie, graduated from high school. And somewhere in there, my younger brother, Christopher, graduated from Galveston College with his associates degree. And then a few weeks after that Brenden's younger sister, Caitlan, graduated from high school too. Again, no pictures. (Remember, only the important events.)

There was some serious celebration going on in the Gariby household. My mom even made me and Brenden dig our BYU caps and gowns out of our storage unit in Houston so we could take pictures with my siblings. (Someone took pictures! Future generations will thank dear Mother Gariby for capturing these moments.)

We visited my family in Galveston almost every weekend and tried to work during the week. And that's basically our first half of the summer.

Next up: Plants, SUV vs. Honda Civic, Girls Camp, and a short trip to the capital of the best of all possible states.

This guy has nothing to do with our next post but Brenden insisted we share it. It's a figurine we bought on our honeymoon for Brenden's tuba professor at BYU. Yup, we only took pictures of the important things.