Another of My Babies Is Getting Married!

I am pleased to announce the engagement of my daughter, Gabrielle, to a lovely young man named Raine.

The short story: they worked together for nearly a year and developed a solid friendship before they started dating. They're getting married in late June in the Salt Lake temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Gabrielle is 22, and Raine is 24.

Read below for exhaustive details.

Nearly ten months ago, I had a very strong feeling that I needed to tell Gabrielle something that God wanted her to know. It was such a specific thing that I was a little reluctant to say anything at all, but the feeling of urgency wouldn't go away. I fully believe parents can receive revelation for their children when needed, so I decided I'd wait for the right time and see how to fit it in to the conversation.

I had the opportunity to tell her a couple days later when we all gathered at the hospital to visit Sian and Nathan after the birth of our tiny, premature grandson. As we were leaving the hospital, Gabrielle got teary, so I pulled her aside for a little mother-daughter chat. She was struggling with knowing what her next move in life was. She'd had so many bad experiences with dating, but she felt ready to move on to the next phase of life as a wife and mother, and she didn't know what she was supposed to be doing despite her consistent prayers.

It was the perfect moment. I told her what the Lord had prompted me to say, which was that if she moved out of the house where she was then living, she would meet the man she was going to marry. I was nervous because that was a very specific promise, but I had to have faith that I was telling her the right thing. She immediately cheered up and told me that I had validated the answer she felt she'd received as she had prayed.

Soon after, she moved into the house where Sophia had rented a room (how that happened is also a testament to how the Lord knows what you need exactly when you need it). And, little did she know, she almost immediately met the man who would be her future fiance'. 

Raine is also an employee at the company where Gabrielle and Sophia work. He and Gabrielle don't work in the same unit, but the company is small enough that they knew of each other and began to develop a friendship. Ten months ago, Gabrielle was not ready to date. Had he asked her out then (and he was seriously thinking about it), she would have said no. But their friendship grew, and a few weeks ago, they realized they had so much in common and so enjoyed each others' company that they should date. While Gabrielle did have moments of strong anxiety due to her past experiences, we had some excellent phone conversations, and I was able to help her talk out her worries and figure out what was normal anxiety and what was unreasonable worry. She had forgotten what I told her ten months ago, and when I reminded her, she immediately felt a great deal of relief.

Saturday night, I got home from a meeting to find the two of them in my living room with Husband, Elannah, and the boys. After hugs and introductions, Gabrielle flashed the plain white-gold band on her left hand (no gemstones, just the way she likes it) and announced that she and Raine were engaged. She's so happy, and that makes me so happy. And as we got to know Raine over the course of the evening, I can see why she's so happy. They fit very well together. They have similar career and life goals and share a strong faith. He loves kids (which is very important to me as a grandmother!), and he's intelligent, funny, and outgoing--just like Gabrielle. He obviously respects our daughter, and she respects him. 

They're planning a late June wedding in the Salt Lake temple. Oy! That's pretty quick, but Raine's family had already planned a big family trip to Hawaii in July, so they decided to use that as their honeymoon. It's a good thing that they aren't interested in an elaborate reception because we don't have time to plan one of those.

So now my second daughter is going to be a Mrs., and I'm just so grateful that she will be as happy as Sian. My mother's heart wants only that her children be truly happy with their chosen mates and produce as many grandchildren as possible for my sake.  

A New Massage Chair!

Elannah wanted me to go with her to the store to check out the Easter candy sales. I knew that was a bad idea, but I went anyway. And I bought some Dove chocolate. Not the best, certainly, and I prefer 90% dark Lindt chocolate these days, but whatever. I'm on vacation for one more day.

I have to take exception to this, though:

I don't even know where to begin with this message. I won't go into a nerdy rant about it (you're welcome), but Dove's message generator needs a tweak to its algorithm. I hate to think some human came up with that.


Now that that's out of my system, here's a picture of last Friday's lunch:

I don't usually take photos of my meals, but, guys, it's fish-and-chips (for me) and pie-and-chips (for Husband)! Also note the squeezie bottle of malt vinegar, the chip-shop-worthy curry sauce on Husband's plate, and my glass of apple and black currant squash. The only thing missing is brown sauce.

Here's the story of Friday: Husband found an amazing deal on a top-of-the-line massage chair that was barely used. He's used our crappy but serviceable massage chair nearly every day for the last couple years, but this one is a Rolls Royce to our Pinto.

Hubby made an appointment to go pick up the chair from the sellers on Friday, a day we had off work because of Easter break. The sellers live way up north, near the Idaho border, so we planned on a little road trip, just him and me. As the Little Taste of Britain restaurant is located in Layton, Utah, which was on the way, we decided to go there for lunch. They do a really decent British chip shop lunch, and I was craving some battered cod.

When we got to Layton, something happened. I won't tell you all the details because you don't want to know all the details. The gist of it is that I had an apocalypse-level female experience. Thanks, peri-menopause!

That catastrophe took a bit of time to sort out, but once things were handled, we headed to lunch.

The restaurant has a little store where you can buy British things, so Husband bought a bottle of Robinson's apple and blackcurrant squash (it's a sweet syrup you dilute with water) because I love it. It always takes me back to the winter I spent in Loughborough, Leicestershire, England, where my mission companion and I drank it hot because we were so dang cold all the time. He also bought a Flake chocolate to split, for dessert.

As we were getting ready to leave, Husband ran into one of his work colleagues. She had come up to the restaurant from our little burg because her husband, who is Scottish, required Iron Bru soda at the party they were throwing, so she bought a couple cases and happened to be there just when we were. Small world. But I don't know why anyone would want to drink Iron Bru except the Scottish. They like nasty stuff like that, haggis being another fine example.

We got back on the road and wended our way through Cache Valley to Smithfield, near Logan. If I was going to move somewhere else in Utah, I'd move to Cache Valley. It is one of the most beautiful places on earth. It flourishes in spring especially. (But no one can be responsible for flourishing spring itself. You cannot flourish anything, though you can cause something to flourish, though the entire season of spring is not a thing a human could necessarily cause to flourish. Argh. Sorry. Just couldn't leave that alone after all.)

We found the house, and the very nice homeowner let us in to look at the chair. Husband tried it out, and yes, it is a seriously great massage chair. I didn't try it out because I have a bad history with massage chairs. They tend to screw up my back, and then I'm in pain for days. Irony.

The next problem was how to get it out to the van. The chair, which must weigh several hundred pounds, had been assembled in the homeowner's bedroom and hadn't been moved in the six years they'd owned it. Plus, it had been assembled by company representatives. She had no idea how to disassemble it and no idea of how we were going to move it. It was too wide to get through the doorway, so some disassembly was going to be necessary.

Husband is a smart cookie, fortunately, and he's pretty handy with an Allen wrench. He figured out how the arms could safely be removed, which allowed us to get the chair through the door and outside.

When I say we got the chair through the door and outside, you cannot possibly imagine the amount of straining and sweating that went into that. My legs and arms were noodly by the time we got to the driveway. I sat and panted like a dog for a while, recovering my strength and trying not to black out. We managed to hoist it into the van by a Herculean effort on all our parts, and then Husband and I were off on the road back home.

When we got back home, we didn't relish the idea of manhandling that chair out of the van, into the house, and up the stairs to our second-story bedroom. Husband asked Sophia (who visits just about every weekend) to call her boyfriend the physical trainer to come and help. Meanwhile, I, Husband, and my FIL got the chair out of the van. FIL was just saying, "I can't believe how strong you are!" to me when I felt my back go out: a searing spasm of muscles, a sure knowledge of even more pain to come. I managed to croak out that we needed to set the chair down, and then I also managed not to drop my side and crush someone's foot. And then, ow!

I sat, grimacing, on the couch while the the men slowly and painfully pulled and pushed the behemoth up the stairs.

It sits now in our bedroom, and it has become well-loved by every member of the household--including me. It has this function where you can go to a zero-gravity reclining position, turn on the heat and air compression program, and then sit for 15 minutes of massage bliss with no rollers. Between that and the foam roller I've been using, my back is almost completely back to normal.

Five Generations

It finally happened.

The stars aligned: no one was sick, schedules were open, and the weather was okay for driving. The whole family got together to celebrate all the birthdays we'd missed for Elannah, Gabrielle, my dad, one of my brothers, and one of my sisters.

For the first time since Tyler was born nine months ago, we had all five generations together. Therefore, it was imperative that we take a picture.

From left to right: Tyler's great-great grandma, his great-grandma, his grandma, his mommy, and his cute wi'l self.

Also, Elannah went to her senior prom. For some reason, her high school always holds prom on Fridays, and since this is Utah, the kids have this all-day date tradition. This means that a lot of kids are absent from school on the day of prom. I don't care if my senior misses a day of school. By this point, I'm sick of school myself. I think I've had senioritis since I was a sophomore, and it just never went away.

This year, however, prom also coincided with the State One-Act Play competitions, which created a problem for Elannah and some of her drama friends. The competition was held in Cedar City, Utah, which is a good five hour drive from where we live. But I love a road trip, so I took the day off work and left early in the morning to pick up Elannah and a couple of her friends after they had performed their play, then turned around and drove all the way back. The girls did their hair and makeup in the car, and we still got back in time for them to have their pictures done. They missed the day-date, but they still went to dinner and the dance, which is always held at the Utah State Capitol building. Swanky!

Elannah's date was her friend Sho, the Japanese foreign exchange student, and they teamed up with a bunch of their other friends.

Wouldn't it be funny if the photographer had taken one of these poses with the boys?

Anyway, they had a lovely time at prom, and the one-act play won first place at State. That's a real feather in Elannah's ex-boyfriend's cap, as he was the playwright (not that he really needs his head swelled any larger). He's been accepted into the University of Utah's prestigious drama program as a freshman in the fall. I'm secretly glad that Elannah has no interest in pursuing acting as a profession or as an educational career.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Also, after a grueling twelve-hour push, I finally, finally finished the line edit on the manuscript today. Not only did my client need the editing finished so she could meet her publishing deadlines, but I did not want to head into the Easter break with that still hanging over my head. What a relief. To celebrate, I've only edited this post four times instead of five. I'm sure I've missed something, but I don't care.