Eighteen Days and Counting

It's been a whirlwind around here.

This was Brad and Tucker on Friday.

 It's a very strange feeling when your kids pack up everything they ever owned and move out for the last time.  It's different when they leave for college--you know they will be back home that summer.  It's even different when they leave for a mission, because even though it will be two years until you see them again, you know that your kid will be home again.

When they pack up all of their stuff--their books and their clothes and even their childhood mementos--because they are getting married, it rings with a different tone.  This is the end of their time under your roof.  This is the end of their accountability to you. 

See that cool trunk?  Yeah, that's what I found at the auction for Karli's bridal shower.With industrial casters on the bottom, it makes a really cool coffee table.  Can I tell you how excited I am that I'm getting a daughter-in-law who loves auctions and vintage finds just about as much as I do?  

Then, later Friday afternoon, Tucker looked like this . . .

. . . as he nervously prayed that the rain would stop long enough for the photographer to take some pre-wedding pictures. He paced back and forth and sweated in the near-Florida humidity as he waited for Karli to arrive.

When he turned around and saw his bride for the first time, I can tell you that tears stung my eyes.  I saw how he looked at her.  How she looked at him.  And at that moment, my heart was overflowing with joy, knowing that these two have found "The One" in each other.

Brad drove them up to Provo on Sunday night (and drove home alone last night), helped them unload their moving van, and got Tucker settled into their apartment.  For the next two weeks, Karli will camp out on the floor of a friend's apartment as they both count the last eighteen days they will have to be apart.

I am so excited for them.

Then the real adventure will begin.  My role will fade into the background, and they will turn to each other for advice, comfort, stability, and trust. 

It's hard on moms--these weddings.

It's a good hard, and I wouldn't have it any other way.