Derek's Graduation

Our third semester at Texas A&M University has finally ended and Derek went out with a bang! He graduated with his masters in business, or MBA. I’m so proud of him and how diligent he has been during the last year and a half. Derek and I both started our graduate programs at A&M in the fall of 2008. We met at the beginning of the semester and started dating shortly after. Many of his MBA classmates told him he was crazy to date while being so busy with school. But he surprised everyone and didn’t just date but proposed and got married while in his program. Derek also survived a bad case of mono earlier this year. The poor thing was so tired all the time and suffered a terrible sore throat. Again, he surprised us and pulled through the semester. Throughout his program, Derek has had to work with a lot of different people on different papers and assignments. Can I just say that if I had to choose anyone to be in my group I would choose Derek? He is so smart, and creative, and he works so hard. Derek recently worked on a consulting project for Continental Airlines with a few other classmates and they presented to one of the vice presidents of the company. They were given the assignment to design a simple staffing model for the maintenance guys who work on the ground services equipment. Instead, they delved a little deeper into the matter and found out that the problems were rooted much deeper in the company. So basically what they presented to the VP of Continental was a complete change in organization and management of the ground services division. The VP loved it and will present to the President of the company. Needless to say, I am very proud of Derek and I am so happy for his accomplishment.

Derek’s parents and his little brother, Trent, came down from California for graduation. We’re glad Trent was able to make it considering he broke his femur and fractured his pelvis just 4 weeks ago. By the way, he’s doing fantastic! The Mays Business School had a special graduation for the MBA students and it was very nice. We had a great time with Derek’s family and we are grateful that they made the trip out to support Derek. Who knew Bill (Derek’s dad) was a pack mule, too? They helped us move some of our stuff out and Bill packed up way more than we were planning on, which was greatly appreciated. Derek and I are now living in Sugar Land with my family while I complete an internship at Memorial Hermann hospital. I’ll be working with cardiac rehab patients and I am really excited about this opportunity. Derek will be working on his thesis and job searching. We’ll finally be done with school in May when I graduate and then we’re off to who knows where! We hope you all enjoy your holidays and have a very Merry Christmas!

Love, Derek and Christie Egbert

Unfortunately, this is the only decent picture I got of Derek walking across the stage to get hooded.

Derek had to work in teams each semester and this was his favorite group.

Trent was riveted at the Derek's graduation ceremony.

Derek's parents, Trent, Derek, Christie, my parents. One big happy family at graduation...just missing brothers and sisters.

Trent snuck in on this one. He's such a ham!

Wings Over Houston

On Halloween I went to my first air show ever and loved it! I probably wasn't as excited as Derek but boy was it a good show. First of all it took us FOREVER to get there. The traffic was insano. It took us an hour to go a quarter of a mile. We could see some planes flying overhead from the air show and I could tell Derek was pretty ancy just sitting in the back seat of the car. Graciously, Justin and Kristen let us out so we could walk while they continued to wait in traffic. We finally arrived and Derek was like a little kid in a candy shop. He knows pretty much everything there is to know about planes. He even worked on the C17 at the Boeing Factory in Long Beach, CA. I think he was the most excited to see the C17.

We walked around a bit and looked at all the neat planes and helicopters. Then we settled down in our seats and watched the show! There were tons of planes flying and doing all sorts of tricks but I'll just highlight my favorites. They had a really neat reinactment of the attack on Pearl Harbor with Japanese planes and fake explosions. The radio broadcast from the attack was played over the loud speakers and it was very touching. It made me so grateful for our country and its resilience. I don't think this is actually the Japanese zeros but you can see the "bombs" going off.

One incredible plane we saw was the Harrier. I've never seen anything like it nor did I know it existed. This was an airplane but it acted just like a helicopter. It could take off straight up and land by coming straight down. The most impressive thing the Harrier did was hover in mid-air. It could just sit there in the air and turn around or go side to side. Incredible! I've attached a video so you can see for yourself. Derek explained to me that the plane has four huge jets that can change directions and is controlled by a highly trained pilot. That's about as technical as I can understand.



The next cool thing we saw was a trick plane. Apparently the pilot won the Red Bull Air Race in Budapest, Hungary. Don't worry, I had no idea what that was until a few weeks ago when Derek was watching it on tv. Pilots take these small planes and go through a series of obstacles and race for the fastest time. Anyways, Michael Goulian performed some way fun tricks for us. He would go up super high and then stall the plane and let it free-fall. Then he's start it up again and zoom back up in the sky. He also did back flips with his plane. He was seriously incredible and very entertaining to watch. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of him.

The last thing I'll write about was the main attraction: THE BLUE ANGELS!!! I'd never even heard of them until I met Derek. Everyone kept telling me how amazing they were and that my life would never be the same after seeing the Blue Angels fly. I have officially been converted to a Blue Angels fan. They did not disappoint! They did all sorts of cool formations and flybys. I couldn't believe how close they were to eachother, seriously inches apart. What precision and concentration! I was so impressed and truly felt proud to be an American.

That's all from me. I was kind of nervous to write my first blog because I'm not the best writer and I didn't want to make it boring. Derek is so talented at writing and capturing a story. Well, I'll leave you with a few more pictures from our exciting day at Ellington Field.

There was a wingwalker and she was marvelous. I can't believe how brave she was to stand on top of the plane while the pilot went upside down and basically all over the place. They were pretty rad to watch.



I thought this plane was really cool looking. It's called a guppy and carries spaceship parts for NASA.


Here's a picture of Derek and Justin by an F-4 Phantom.



And this picture is totally unrelated to the air show but it was taken of us at the mall while we waited for 3 hours to meet Chuck Norris. He was totally worth the wait! I'm sure Derek will write a blog about it sometime.

Summer Beach Trips Part 2: Surfside & Galveston, TX

During our adventures in California, the Young clan had already started their annual vacation at the beach house in Surfside, TX (about 45 minutes down the Gulf Coast from Galveston Island).  When we flew into Texas, Christie's sister picked us up from the airport and promptly took us to the beach house.  Most of the family was at the house and it was a lot of fun to be staying right on the beach.  One of the first things I noticed about the beach was how incredibly small the waves were compared to the waves I grew up with in California; the funny part of my observations was that those "small" waves I saw on our first day were HUGE compared to the waves for the rest of the week.  Ha!  I couldn't believe how warm the water was too, definitely a big change from the chilly waters at Laguna Beach.

Me and my buddy Sammy.

The Texas vacation was a much different kind of vacation than the previous one in California.  At Laguna Beach, we were always running around going from the beach to the condo to downtown and back all of the time, but the pace changed dramatically when we got to Surfside.  This beach vacation was very slow paced and relaxed without much structure at all, which was also nice.  It was fun to spend some time with my new family and get to know their way of having fun.

One of the highlights of the week was when Sam (Christie's dad) sent 6 of us out on a chartered fishing boat to do some Gulf fishing.  This wasn't deep sea fishing, as we weren't far enough off the coast, but it was good enough.  When the skipper said that we were going to catch some sharks, I thought that might mean 1 or 2...boy, I was wrong!  The crew made everything easy for us and we didn't have to do much other than reel in the fish, but that was hard enough work most of the time.  I pulled in the first one and it was about a 4 foot shark!  It was a fighter and got me breathing pretty heavy but it was lots of fun.  Everybody had a chance to pull at least one in, but the girls would often pass the reel to me or Marshall and we would take care of business.  I pulled in about 5 or 6 sharks that day and was pretty sore when it was all over.  We let most of the sharks go, but kept a few to cut up and cook later on (I love to cook fish).  Marshall turned out to be the hero of the day when he pulled in a Tarpon fish that was over 6 feet long and well over 100 pounds!  It took him about 45 minutes to finally land the fish on the boat, after which he and Elise got a picture with it on their laps...Elise was a little grossed out but she was a trooper and got the shot.  The crew of the ship said they pull in about 500-600 sharks a year on their trips, but only get about 10 Tarpon a year, and that was the first one of the season.  We had no idea what a Tarpon was until then, but we know it now!

Out on the fishing boat in the Gulf of Mexico.

 

Me and Christie with her catch of the day (the shark...not the blond kid...).

Marshall and Elise with the massive and beautiful Tarpon.

Sam took Christie and I out on their sailboat for a couple hours one afternoon and I had a great time.  It probably didn't seem like I had fun because my stomach was a little queasy (the waters were pretty rough that day), but it was fun to do something that I had never tried before.  Hopefully we'll have some good sailing trips in the future and I'll be able to learn a bit about sailing, since I was mostly focused on keeping my lunch down that day.  Thanks to Sam for taking us out on his boat!

On one of the days, we went to Galveston to walk around downtown and then go mini-golfing and take a ride on the reverse bungee.  A few of us went down early to go see the flight museum and then we met up with everybody else downtown.  There was a candy/ice cream shop that is a tradition for the Youngs, so we we had some goodies there.  Mini golf was fun, but the best part of the day was taking a ride on that reverse bungee ride.  I was a bit skeptical at how fun it would really be, but wow!  It was probably the funnest ride I have ever been on!  Two people get strapped in the cage and then the bungees are tightened up.  When they finally release the cage, you go flying up about 150+ feet in a heartbeat!  It was so much fun and it really gives you that weightless feel better than any ride I've been on.  Elise lost her voice (and Marshall lost his hearing) after they took a ride.  The video is priceless.

At the ice cream shop with Bertie's kids...the guy taking the picture thought they were ours!

Right before takeoff!

So much fun!

While I was pretty vacationed-out by the end of that trip, it was fun but also good to get back home and back into the swing of things.

Summer Beach Trips Part 1: Laguna Beach

A few short weeks after our honeymoon came to a close, we made a trip out to California for my family's annual beach vacation in Laguna Beach.  Lucky for me, the planets had aligned and the timing was just right for us to hit the X Games a few days before our beach vacation started.  My brother Kevin and his wife Krystina came down from Utah a few days early to join us in the amazing celebration of all that is action sports (extreme sports).  Anybody who knows me knows that the X Games for me is like having the superbowl, world series, Stanley Cup, and Olympics all rolled into one event!  Tickets are really cheap and we were able to go to two days of the action in Los Angeles.

While I could write page after page on my synopsis of the X Games, suffice it to say that Christie had a fun time getting to see me in my element and it was great that we could spend some time with my brother and his wife.  Christie did, however, get a little star-struck at the Staples Center when Travis Pastrana parked his bike about 15 feet away from our seats.  Christie yelled as loud as she could, "HI TRAVIS!!!!" and Travis looked over, waved, and merely said "hello".  I thought Christie was going to melt after that, it was fun to see her get so excited.  We have been watching a TV show on MTV called Nitro Circus and Travis is the star, so now Christie has even a deeper interest in watching that show with me.  I don't know how I got so lucky, I never thought my wife would be so excited to meet a motocross star!

On Saturday (our 2nd day of X Games events), in our wanderings around the Home Depot Center, we actually got to meet two of the athletes that actually won gold medals in their respective sports later that day (skate and BMX halfpipe)!  I got to chat with Jamie Bestwick (BMX half-pipe legend) for a while but then Christie got to chat with one of the best skate-boarders in the world during half-pipe practice.  The skater is Pierre Luc-Gagnoc (PLG) and he is from Canada.  When he came by our seats (we had awesome seats right next to the half-pipe), Christie asked him where in Canada he was from and, turns out, he was from a small town where Christie served her mission for a few months.  Kind of crazy, huh?  I can't lie...I was a little jealous that my wife had more to talk about with one of the kings of skateboarding than I did, but I got over it and thought it was pretty cool!

The next week at Laguna, a good majority of the Mackay side of the family attended, which made for a really fun week.  My cousin Tyler and his wife Nicole even made changes to their summer plans to go to Laguna when they found out that Kevin, Krystina, Christie, and I were going to be there....thanks again for making the effort to come!  The week was full of surfing, snorkeling, sunbathing, golf ball hunting, hanging out, farkle, and simply having fun.  We couldn't have asked for anything better.  It was great!  After last years 2nd degree sunburn on both of my feet, I took even more precaution and made it out of Laguna without getting burned this year, wahoo!

 

 

 

One of the exciting parts of the trip was when we all got to hear about Nicole's surprising announcement that she was pregnant!  However, the announcement was not-so-surprising to Christie, who grew up in a family of 6 girls (and has lots of nieces and nephews) and is, subsequently, good at seeing the signs of pregnancy well before most people.  After Christie had spent some time with Nicole during the week, she just knew...

We really had such a fun time just being with family and taking it easy.  Who knows what next summer has in store for us and chances are that we won't have the time to go to Laguna next year, so we did our best to cherish the memories.

The night before we flew back to Texas, we had the chance to attend an Angels baseball game.  Christie's favorite movie is Disney's Angels in the Outfield and I was excited that we could take her to see the stadium and the team play!  She had a good time and we certainly have a hilarious and embarassing story to go along with that night, but definitely won't be sharing it with the world on this blog!  Next time you see us, you'll have to ask us about the good times at the Angel's game!

 

Wedding and Honeymoon: The short story

Christie and I had a most excellent wedding and were amazed at all of the people that came to show their support (and eat some good food).  Many of my family members from California, Utah, and Idaho came out to the Lone-Star State for the first time and a very large amount of Christie's family came from all over (with a large chunk from Utah).  We hope it was worth everybody's efforts despite the wretched Texas heat.  I am so glad I made it through that day--the biggest challenge for me on my wedding day was to not get heat exhaustion...and while I was feeling the tell-tale signs of it when we left the reception, I got some cold Gatorade and was back to my normal self very quickly.

Our honeymoon was started in downtown Houston for the 4th of July, where we saw an absolutely incredible fireworks display, and then we migrated down to South Padre Island to get some good beach time.  It was SO good for us to get away from work, school, and the pressures of planning a wedding and just RELAX!  We had so much fun that whole week, whether it was sitting on the beach, playing trackball (a Young family tradition), bocce ball, parasailing, going out to eat (we ate at a REALLY nice seafood place and it was GOOD!), off-roading on the beach in the 4Runner, or just hanging out at our awesome condo.  We got some good pictures and picked up some shells and hope we can hold on to them for a while to remind us of the good time we had down there.

When we got back from South Padre, we were awed when we saw the amount of gifts that we had to open!  It was very humbling and we are very grateful for all of the amazing and sweet things that people got us.  We hope that our thank-you cards made it out to everybody and wish we could do more to show our appreciation for the incredible generosity that everybody has shown!

Howdy!

Greetings from College Station, TX and welcome to our new blog! We have many newly-married friends who have joined this blogging bandwagon and we're here to test the waters for a little while. The hardest part about doing these blogs is knowing where to start, so since we saw many of you at our wedding, I guess I'll take it from there! Feel free to post some comments and let us know how you're doing. Since both of us are in school busy with a million things, we might not be extremely dilligent in upkeeping the blog, so forgive us, but we'll give it our best shot.