New Addition Coming Soon

In less than a years time, there will be a new addition to our family.  I will have a new sister (in-law)!  (You thought I was going to announce something else, didn't you??)  My brother is newly engaged!  He's been all over the country...and to a lot of places around the world.  Mr. Adventure has met Miss Right.  My brother is 29.  He is the youngest of three of us and the one that never ever got in trouble for anything.  I say it was because he is spoiled, my parents say it was because he watched my sister and I get into trouble and was a quick learner.

 

He was nine years younger than I (we're nearly the same age now) so my recollection of his high school years are sketchy.  I was proud of him when I watched him play baseball, and when he played the drums in pep band, and when he went off to Austria on a mission trip.  I was proud of him when he showed his sheep at fair and when he left for Moody Bible Institute and when he fought to recover from what could have been a fatal car accident and when he started a ministry for the homeless in downtown Phoenix and of all the lives he has touched through all of his charity.  I was proud when he held his first nephew-- even though he commented that it looked like I was still pregnant--and just as proud when I watch him with each one of his nephews and nieces today.  I am incredibly proud of the man he has become and I know that many are blessed to know him. 

I remember when I was home from college and even later, all of the girl friends (not girlfriends, just friends that were girls) that he had and wondering what in the world could possibly have been wrong with any of them.  Why were they just his friends?  No girlfriend.  Over the course of the last several years, he's had other girl friends and some girlfriends.  There was always something that just wasn't quite right...not the full package he was looking for according to him.  I was starting to think he was unrealistically picky.  That he was searching for someone who didn't exist.   I couldn't imagine anyone who could meet the qualifications he was seeking.  I just kept thinking maybe we should work on converting him to Catholicism because I thought he would make a great priest. 

We were blessed to have him here with us in our home for more than a month just a couple of seasons ago.  It was one of the most memorable times that I've shared with him.  He left here to go back to Scottsbluff for a few months to work and help our dad before heading back to Alaska for the tourist season.  He arrived there kind of deflated and discouraged, feeling like there was really nothing for him back in Western Nebraska.  No excitement, no big city opportunitites or entertainment...just small town life.  I told him that maybe God was taking him there because He had someone waiting for him...that he would meet "The One" while he was there.  We both laughed.

And then it happened.  He met Annie, and when he talked about her to me over the phone, I could hear him smile.  I always told him he would know when he met "her" (the one).  He said after only a few weeks (of spending ALL of his free time with her) that he thought she was it.  He was scared to say it though, for fear that it wasn't real and that he was just making up what he wanted.  That was around March...on Father's day he asked her father's permission to propose and by the end of July they were excitedly announcing their engagement. 

I am proud of my brother's choice of his future wife. She has met his standards...exceeded them really.  I am excited for all the years that they have ahead of them together and for the addition of a new sister to our family. 

Congratulations Cash and Annie!!