dry run

This past weekend was Timo's graduation ceremony. He is now* the proud owner of a BFA in graphic design from CCA. To celebrate, we invited family members out to California to attend the ceremony and meet each other for the FIRST TIME. YIPES.

Attendees were:
My mom
My dad
Timo's mom
Timo's dad
Timo's stepmom
Timo's Aunt Jane
Timo's Aunt Mary
Timo's Uncle Bob
Timo's cousin Liz
Timo's Aunt Alice**
Timo's Uncle Michael**
Our friend Danielle

I'm happy to report, dear readers, that it went very well. Everyone got along, and I'm fairly certain they all had a good time, unless they are much better liars than I give them credit for. Of course, I knew it would all be fine. They're all good people and we like them.

In the days leading up to the weekend family extravaganza, I joked many times [probably always to the same people - sorry Jean-Paul!] that we should just be getting married this weekend and get it over with. I expect that with the amount of planning and logistics that went into it, I have a peek at what a wedding weekend will be like. But with 8 times more guests. We had dinner reservations on Friday night for the nuclear 7, handled transport the next day to the graduation and then to Alice & Michael's house for 12, and cooked brunch for 14 on Sunday morning at our apartment.*** Then we wondered what the heck to do for the rest of the day on Sunday because I hadn't planned any more activities. Turns out that all Timo and I were capable of doing was sitting on the couch, flipping through magazines, not talking because we were too tired. Hopefully, if we plan the wedding weekend right, by the time that exhaustion hits we'll be on a plane to as-yet-to-be-determined exotic honeymoon locations.

Anyway, I'm happy to report that the meeting of parents over a long weekend can be entirely pleasant. It was for us, and I am so glad we did this before the rehearsal dinner. With this accomplished, Danielle safely in town, and apartment fully moved in to, it's time to get back to the main event: figuring out how to post photos on this blog. I'll crack the code soon, I promise.

*Actually, he had this BFA in December, AND the diploma is already on our wall, but they don't do a December ceremony. So we took a break from real-world, full-time employment, and pretended for a weekend that he was just graduating now. Then we laughed at all the poor students who would be starting their job hunt on Monday.

**Bay Area residents, so they had the easiest trip. Though that did mean they had to open their house to us.

***Did I mention that we have a new apartment too?