Reflections: Gariby Family Fun

My mom was recently asked to give a lesson for a Relief Society activity and she asked me for some help. Her lesson is about wholesome family activities and she wanted to know what were some activities I had enjoyed and appreciated while I was growing up. It's been a lot of fun to reflect on my memories of those things and I thought I'd share a few of my thoughts here.

I love books. As far back as my memory extends, I have always loved books. This is because my parents, especially my mother, fostered a deep love of books when I was very young. Our local library had a wonderful children's department with activities each week and during the summer reading program, multiple activities every day. My mother took us to library all the time. I still remember the joy of climbing down the steps into the children's department and looking at all of the new books displayed on the shelves. I remember when it came time to check out and we'd literally have stacks of books in our arms, we'd place them on the counter at the checkout desk and the lady behind the counter would place them in the special Rosenberg Library bags. It was always a good day if it was a library day. Library trips were always exciting for me because they meant new adventures were waiting for me, there were new places to read about, new art projects to learn and create, and new characters to meet and become friends with. My trips to the library in my youth have had a huge impact on who I am today. My personality and my hopes and desires have been shaped by the books I've read and by the love of books my mother cultivated in me at such a young age.

While I was growing up, my mother worked full-time and for her job she had to go to conferences about once a year. She'd always select an available conference during our summer breaks so we could make her conference trips into mini family vacations. The conferences she attended took place in Texas and we became familiar with the fancy schmancy hotels (her employer put us up in nice hotels) in Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, and Corpus Christi. This meant that while she was attending her meetings during the day, my dad and my siblings and I would go explore all of the hotel's fancy amenities, most often ending at the pool and spending hours there. Then during the late afternoon and evenings we'd visit the Riverwalk or see family friends in Dallas or go driving around town. Those trips were very low-key and relaxed. We'd road trip to each of these cities and I always looked forward to the drive. The drives were probably about half of the fun of the trip. I loved being with my family sharing stories, talking about the fun things we were going to do or had done on the trip, sleeping on each others' shoulders, reading books, and listening to my dad's music. We also had specific restaurants we'd always visit if we were on a certain highway or in Austin for another conference. And it was fun to have these places that were ours in cities that were both strange and familiar to us. These were things I shared with my family and no one else and that's what made them special.

Every year right before Christmas, my family has gone Christmas caroling. This has been a family tradition for years and despite the fact that we sometimes resisted ("It's too cold outside." I'm tired." "I'm a whiny teenager.") my mother always made sure we visited our friends. And of course, she'd make plates of treats to give the families we visited. These plates often consisted of a variety of sweets though sometimes they were simply a plate full of her signature eggrolls. It was sometimes a bit of a stressful process because my parents would come home straight from work and my mom would immediately make her way to the kitchen, preparing the goodies to share with our friends. Sometimes these things wouldn't be done by the time we were planning on leaving, then when everything was finally ready to go, someone couldn't find their shoes or hadn't changed out of their school uniform yet so we'd be a little late getting out and we'd worry that people would go to bed before we could see them. Nevertheless we'd set out, climbing into our suburban or in later years, multiple cars, singing our little hearts out, my dad the one to start us off and usher us into the song, always ending with "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" and never quite knowing when to finish the song, while older friends sometimes quietly cried happily- glad to know people were thinking of them, and we gave away plates and hugs and smiles and laughs, and created years of happy Christmas memories.

These are just a few of the many memorable things my family did while I was growing up. We also took road trips across the country-- Florida, Illinois, Utah; flew to various places-- Hawaii, California, Philippines; cruised to Mexico; hosted big parties in our tiny home; invited the missionaries over for dinner all the time; fed seagulls old bread while we rode the Bolivar Ferry back and forth; did the whole fishing shebang with my cousins and uncle and grandpa-- catching, cleaning, and cooking the fish; went to city parades (a fond memory this Mardi Gras season, don't worry we avoided the Strand); held barbecues; visited museums in Houston; made homemade holiday decorations; etc. My family is very close. And though we have done many things together ranging from big once-in-a-lifetime adventures to weekly library trips, the things I cherish the most are the feelings of love and security I have when I'm just with them. It doesn't matter if we're in Florida or the Philippines or our backyard, we take that love for each other everywhere we go and that's what makes our memories memorable, that's what makes me look back on my past with fondness-- the feelings I felt being with the ones I loved.