In the Navy!

So my little brother has decided that running around and participating in shenanigans is not the best way to participate as an adult to a productive society. He tried the college route and that didn’t wasn’t really for him. He knew that he didn’t want to find himself in the restaurant industry and seemed interested in the money of the technology field but wasn’t interested in the work. So when he told me that he was joining the Navy, I wasn’t really sure what to believe. I think I thought it was a joke but he said he was serious. And then he had a Navy card indicating that he has signed his life away for 4 years and his time was officially counting down.

So when the time started drawing nearer, I knew that I wanted to throw him a party. 1) Because I knew my parents would appreciate some time to their selves with him gone and 2) If my mom threw him a party it would really just be for herself, and he didn’t want that. So I offered and he accepted. He drove up to Austin on Friday and David and I met him at the house. We drove over to Costco to get our grilling meats for the next day and hit the road back home. It was really nice to hang out with my little brother for a bit. I cleaned the house up and bit and set some stuff up, but when I was ready to relax and hang out, we watched Lion King. I remember being a kid and watching it with him, we loved it so much our dad even bought us the Lion King soundtrack so we could listen to it when we weren’t watching the movie. So I picked it out of our library, and we got to sit on the couch and watch it on our big screen. It was really great, except… The Lion King is a really messed up movie. Like, sad messed up. This kid’s dad dies! Right in front of him and then his uncle is like “yea, kid this is totally your fault.” I cried, like I do when I watch Disney, but we pushed through it. We ended up all heading to bed around midnight, because I am old and anytime after 11, I turn into a pumpkin.

The next day I woke up and went grocery shopping. Got lots of things set up and decorated the house with awesomeness. I tend to go overboard sometimes on parties, but it’s always the small touches that make it a fun time. So friends came over and we got to eat yummy bar b que and then the relaxing after the eating started. We were all just sitting on the back deck when someone mentioned, when are you shaving Michael’s head? What a great question that was, well... I wasn’t doing anything at that moment, so what better time than the present. I pulled out some hair trimming scissors and mustache trimmer. It was horrible; I forgot to buy clippers so we couldn’t just take care of the haircut in 5 minutes. It took about an hour just to get some done. Half way done a friend of mine, Sean just couldn’t take it any longer that he drove home and came back with his clippers. So after an hour of tiring clipping, we were able to finish shaving Michael’s head down within 2 minutes. After a haircut, we all had some cake and got a little sugar high off of that awesomeness. While we were back outside on the deck relaxing and having more conversation, our friend Charles decided he too wanted to shave his head. So we all headed back into the garage and there we were, getting his head shaved by his girlfriend, Jessica. The party actually started dying off after that and it wasn’t long till it was midnight and the house was empty, except for our friend Sean and Michael and I decided going to bed with David would be the best decision I could make. So what did Sean and Michael do? They went to a pool hall to go play 8 ball. Thing is, our new front door is automatic, so it locks after 30 seconds. They didn’t know the code to get in so they have to jump our fence when they came back. They decided to take some pictures as well to show me of their shenanigans.

I’m glad my brother had a great time for his last hoorah, and I know when I look back at this blog when he is just about to graduate; I will be all sorts of proud of him again. I am constantly sending him good positive energy to prepare for his journey to become a seaman. It will involve a lot of struggles and lessons, but I couldn’t think of another person better for the job.