Graduation, Guests, and a Game

This is the season for graduations and my niece, Anna Giberson, started it off with her graduation from BYU with a major in art history and a minor in non-profits.  My brother, Rick and my sister-in-law Linda came up from Texas to be a part of her big day.

(borrowed this picture from Facebook)

We were hoping to celebrate with them at a late lunch (or early dinner) in Midvale with Dad and Karla.  However after taking about 30 minutes to go a short distance on the freeway, the news was that there was a 14 car pileup away with only one lane open. A quick storm had left water on the road which seemed to have been one of the factors. On a Friday afternoon that meant a huge delay so we hopped off the next exit and headed back home.

Dad and Karla with Anna

We were sad to miss that opportunity to celebrate (and unfortunately was not the only graduation dinner we missed! More later on that.) but were thrilled when Rick and Anna came to spend the night (Rick) and the weekend (Anna).  We had planned on Anna but Rick was an unexpected blessing. This is the second time in less than three months that I got to see him and we will connect again in August when Jena and I head to Texas for my niece's wedding.  We got some good conversation and game playing in.

This game is a cooperative game where all players are working together to save the world from the spread of disease.  This one is called "Pandemic Iberian" so the map is of the Spain and Portugal part of the world set in 1905 or so.  It is an interesting game to work together and we were so disappointed when we lost the first game Saturday morning.  We felt like we had learned some important things which could help us win the game.  However Rick was leaving for the airport around 1:00 and Jena, Anna and I were heading to the Centerpoint Theatre to usher and to watch the play "Oliver".

Then Rick received a notification that his flight had been cancelled due to possible storms in Dallas-Ft. Worth.  They put him on another flight which was going to take 6 hours or so and included a long layover instead of his planned non-stop.  He called and rearranged and got to spend Saturday night in Utah and take a non-stop flight in the morning--extra bonus for us all.  We got a ticket for him to attend the play as well and Gary joined us for the afternoon matinee ..........Side note:  When Rick texted Linda (who had left Utah on Friday afternoon to attend her nephew's wedding in Oakland), she mentioned that one of their friends and his daughter were in the play.  They had lived in their ward in Texas but had moved to Centerville about 3 years ago.  Unfortunately it was the wrong cast---because how amazing would have it been to see old friends performing when you didn't plan it!  They were performing in the Saturday evening cast that day.  But Rick texted them and mentioned that he was at the theatre and just after the show, they met up in the parking lot and were able to reconnect for the moment....back to the story....

and then we got to play one more game of Pandemic Iberian.

AND WE WON!!  On basically the last play of the game.  We were feeling really good about our strategy at first as it seemed like we were making good progress, but at the end it literally came down to the last four hands being played exactly right for us to win! Whew.  It will be fun to play it again.

When Rick asked if we wanted to play a game Saturday morning, I told him that it seemed somewhat wrong to play a game in the morning--something like eating chocolate before lunch.  It is something you do on vacations.  He pointed out that he was on vacation so we all supported his vacation by playing.  How glad I am that we did!  It was a great break from homework and other things of life.  It was exactly what I needed.

One more highlight---A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that I had received books from a friend in Texas. Well, my brother ended up taking a book from the library BACK to Texas!  He had mentioned something from a book he had read about a disaster on Mt. Everest,  I remembered a different book that I had read about the same event and it was in the library so he decided to read it to compare the two stories.  His book will be the one that has traveled the furthest, although that record will end when I travel to Japan on May 10th.