the mcleans

mom is having her own little family reunion of sorts. heather and dennis are visiting. and last night duncan and jenny brought over a chinese food feast. dad was up in his chair and we were all around the table gobbling food and telling stories. as is often the case with duncan, he talked more than he ate, but he soon caught up with the rest of us. they moved on to dessert, dad got tired and i hooked him up and hoisted him back into bed with the lift. when sean (the obnoxious but kind care worker) came we all went outside to visit to give them some privacy. we sat in a circle of mismatched lawn chairs listening to and telling stories. the sun was low, and then gone and we talked on in the darkness until at 10:30 mom broke up the party.

we heard all their proposal stories. mom and dad's i knew well. gramma's snippity "are you going to marry that girl or not?!...well you better start acting like it!" and dad subsequent missionary commitment style romance edition "we could marry in april or august, which would you prefer?" heather and dennis had gone to visit dennis' mom who cried because heather was not baptist. in front of heather! on the drive home dennis' smooth move was "i don't know where the marriage license office is here..." duncan's story took place on texada island. he first attempted to ask her on a long romantic beach walk. he took both her hands in his and she screamed because there was a spider behind him. thwarted there, he tried again on bench overlooking the sea at the end of a mossy little hike up on a bluff. this time he managed to pop the question but jenny's answer of "i'll think about it," devastated him. jenny on the other hand just needed to get over the shock. on the way back to the car, duncan asked her what she needed to think about and she was like "i dunno..." and he was like, do you really need to think about it?" and she was like "i guess not..." so then his next step was to ask her japanese father for his blessing. he didn't speak much english but duncan asked him and he lit up with a big beaming smile and called his wife in from the garden saying "good newsah, good newsah!"

it was nice to be with the siblings, hear their stories and wow them all by looking up their questions on google.