Father of the Bride...to be

It's official, as if my previous post wasn't enough of a clue.  Our Lady of BYU and Awesome are engaged.  They were engaged a few nights ago during another epic midwestern evening thunderstorm.  Awesome found a good spot on the DuPage River that runs through our little downtown to make his proposal and the best part is that Our Lady was completely surprised.  She'd expected that he'd make the proposal once they got back to UT, but Awesome had other plans.  We were very honored that he did it while they were here.  It was sweet (yeah, don't hate, I said sweet) to see just how excited they are. 

This is the reenactment - the next day when it wasn't in the middle of a thunderstorm.

Her ring

I'm pleased to say the Our Lady and Awesome are off to a good start.  There is a lot to be done before the wedding, which is in about 90 days.  Nothing like a Mormon wedding timeline.  It's become readily apparent that my role in all of this is that of money changer and that is it.  I'm still trying to deal with my eviction from Denial Land so it's probably just as well that I'm not involved in a whole lot more.

I've noticed though that ever since the engagement was announced that almost uniformly, the response to me is something like this, "Ha!  Have you seen 'Father of the Bride'?  You are so that Dad!  You have to watch it.  We want to watch it with you!'  One of my employees said to me today, "Just don't go and dye your hair, like the dad in 'Father of the Bride'."  As I recall, and it's been a long, long time since I saw the movie, Steve Martin was more than a little freaked by his daughter's impending marriage.  I'm the first to admit that I'm a little freaked, but as I think about the time we spent with Awesome last week, I get a little less freaked.  I do not plan to buy a sports car, nor get my hair dyed before Our Lady's wedding.  I don't think we'll be hiring a wedding planner of murky ethnic descent either.  I am going to indulge all those that are saying watch the movie.  It'll be a good reminder of some of the things to come, I suppose.  Now to find the time to watch this:

I just read that tagline - "A comedy about letting go."  Maybe I won't watch it yet.  I'm not quite ready for that 'letting go' part.

The big sit down with Awesome

In covering the inclement weather version of CAL's high school graduation, I neglected to mention that Awesome arrived earlier in the week with Our Lady of BYU.  As I was driving by ORD on my way home when they landed, it only made sense that I would pick them up. Pacing through baggage claim, I awaited their arrival.  I realized that shortly I would be evicted from Denial Land where I've been living since learning about Awesome.  I got a text from Our Lady saying, "Wheels down" (she is nothing if not her father's daughter) and it wasn't long before they walked past the Curtain of Fascism, staffed by the ever-inept TSA, and I met Awesome.  I knew from the second I saw the way Our Lady looked at him that this thing was a done deal.  A short time later, and by short, I mean nearly an hour because Mother United took nearly AN HOUR (the ineptitude of the baggage delivery at ORD is epic and worthy of another post, but I digress) to get their checked bags onto the belt and delivered, I watched Awesome out the corner of my eye as he watched my first-born walk away to throw something away.  The same thought went through my mind, 'Oh man, he's in love with her,' and that made me smile.  Then I thought it again, and it nearly made me cry.

It made me think of one of the last scenes in the movie "Moonstruck."  Say what you will about Cher (and believe me, there's plenty to say) and the crazy that is Nicholas Cage, that movie was an excellent chick flick.  Well-acted, sharp writing, and it made you feel good.  In the last few moments of the movie, Cher's character is asked by her mother, "Do you love him, Loretta?"  To which she says, "Yeah, ma.  I love him awful."  And the mother retorts, "That's too bad."  It's an awesome scene.  Makes me laugh every time I see it.  I looked at Awesome and Our Lady and knew they loved each other something awful.  The good news is that I didn't feel compelled to blurt out, "That's too bad."  Rather, I felt compelled to say, "Yeah, this is good."  But I didn't.

The day after the high school graduation shenanigans were over, it was apparent that Awesome was ready to have the big sit down discussion.  With me.  Of course, the discussion I refer to is the one that makes potential in-laws, both father and son, more than a little nervous.  It's safe to say that he and I were nervous as he pulled a chair up to my desk in my home office.  While I'm not going to provide a blow-by-blow recount, I can tell you that this young man has his head on right and has been raised well.  He's a reflection of good parents and family.  He's going to take care of my daughter.  There's a bit of a leap of faith involved in an event like this.  You do your best to make sure the questions you have for the young man who wants to marry your daughter will make that leap easier.  So, for Awesome and me, there was laughter (both of us), some man-tears (me), and a collective sigh of relief (both of us) after I said yes to his request for permission to marry my daughter.  You could see the burden lifted from his shoulders at the conclusion of our talk.  I have to give him props as well.  He promptly went upstairs and told Our Lady that I'd said they needed to wait a bit longer before I would say yes.  This bit of information was not well-received.  Nice prank, Awesome.  Well-done.

So, yes, Awesome is awesome. As we told Our Lady, he's a keeper.  Life's about to get a whole lot more interesting here in the Den.

In a sea of 785, there was my girl - now with photos!

It's been three years since Our Lady of BYU graduated from high school and as a result, I'd forgotten just how crazy the week of graduation can be.  It's been nuts.  Although it's been crazy, last night we watched CAL take the stage and accept her diploma.

She was one of 785 graduates and it was tough to pick her out in the processional.  Of course, it didn't help that Mother Nature (a contemptible sheshrew, if there ever was one) was doing her level best to ruin the evening.  School officials decided to start the graduation, held outdoors, early as we had a storm bearing down us.  The winds blew the entire time and it was cold.  It's late May and it was cold.  What we are feeling is called winter, not spring.  But I digress...

They also decided to dispense with all the graduation speech shenanigans and just get to the meat of the matter - the graduates!  It was wonderful to hear CAL's name read and to see her accepting her diploma.  She had her white cords, in honor of her hours of service.  It was cool to see.  She truly stood out in that sea of 785 kids.  I felt that same wave of emotion as I saw her but I didn't cry.  Don't hate - if I had, the tears would have frozen to my face. 

CAL has made us very proud (calm down!  proud in a good way, not a destructive way).  I'm excited to see how she does at university.  It's going to be good.  Really good.  And she's going to do great things.

Photos courtesy of The Chief Pilot (father-in-law):

Thank you, Mother Nature, for making this an eventful evening.

Meeting Awesome

While I've got a few minutes of quiet this Sunday afternoon, I figured it was a good time to get some thoughts down about the week ahead.  Lots going on.

Today has already brought Church, where I had to lead the third hour combined adult meeting.  We are challenging our ward to create 100 profiles here.  So we tried to harness the power of technology as best we could around an extremely tempermental wireless signal to create a cool presentation.  You can only do so much in a building that is 900 years old and was never built for a day beyond rotary phones, let alone wireless signals.  But after more than a few prayers and a couple of colorful words (in the style of J. Golden Kimball, and ALL in my head), it worked.  So as a Bishopric, we got the challenge out there and we're hopeful our ward family will participate.

We have two graduations this week, both for CAL.  One is Seminary graduation tonight and then her high school graduation on Wednesday.  Seminary is a four-year, early morning (6AM start) religious education program and CAL has completed it.  She will also, as noted, graduate from high school.  It's been a rigorous four years and we're really proud of her.  It will be emotional to see her cross the stage Wednesday and accept her diploma.  She'll soon be off to BYU-Idaho for university and the next phase of her life.  She's ready to go.  It's hard to let go.  It doesn't get any easier with the second one.

CAL's graduation will also bring a visit from my in-laws and it will be good to see them.  It also heralds the return of Our Lady of BYU.  This time she's not coming home alone.  No, this time she's got company.  A boy.  And, per her, he's awesome.  Yep, awesome.  Every time I ask her to tell me about this young man all she tells me is the following, "Dad, he's awesome."

Well, we've raised a smart girl and I'm sure he's awesome.  I'm looking forward to meeting him.  No, really I am.  It's just that this is new territory.  My daughters aren't fools and they are very particular when it comes to boys.  So when I get my oldest is announcing, "Dad, he's awesome," I know it's time to pay attention.

It's going to be an interesting week.