I love the fact that my wife and I raised three independant, ambitious daughters, and that they have all grown up to be happy, confident women all in good relationships. Our first two are married, and our youngest is engaged, which is the catalyst for our most recent travel, a journey which we are still on for a few more days. You se, Rose is engaged with wedding plans for April, so Sue and I flew down to help shop for a dress and do other wedding planning.
Our travel was uneventful but late; we didn't arrive at the airport in Houston until about 2:00 AM Central time. Rose brought us to her new apartment in a beautiful complex right in the medical district of Houston. Getting in so late, we went straight to bed. Tuesday was a lazy day once we woke up. Our oldest daughter, Jo, drove over from the Austin area to spend a few days with us. We also had a chance to briefly connect with Temi, her fiance, that day as well.
But the real fun started Wednesday. Jo, Rose, Sue and I went wedding dress shopping. The ladies, of course, had lots of opinions, while I had mostly memories of dance recitals, first days of school, playing in the yard and teaching parallel parking. In the end, she chose a beautiful wedding dress (are there any other kinds?) and we went back to the apartment full of smiles and a lot of "DON'T LET TEMI SEE IT!"
Later that evening we met one of the girls' friends, Melissa, who hosted us for dinner and an evening of playing cards.
The following day was more wedding prep, as we met with Temi's mother (also named Rose) to discuss the ceremony. She is an immigrant from Nigeria - in fact, Temi spent some of his teen years in a boarding school in Nigeria - so she had some definite ideas about how the celebration should go. After a traditional American "white wedding", there will be a wardrobe change, and the reception will be traditional Nigerian. We saw a video of what this can be like, and it looks like so much fun, but obviously not anything Rose, Sue and I could plan. I'm especially excited to wear traditional African clothing. Come April, I'll be able to describe the experience in detail, but for now, a summary of the videos will have to suffice: lots of color, dancing, music, praying and what I can only describe as "back and forth banter" between the two families.
From this meeting, Temi and Rose left to have supper with a Nigerian wedding planner they hired, and Jo drove us westward to the Austin area where we would spend a couple nights with her and her husband, Sam. Rose and Temi met us there later that evening.