An Empty Nester Adventure:: I will be Mother of the Bride

Great news! Our princess is getting married! I haven’t written about this yet because I just didn’t know where to begin. It is such a thrilling new adventure. The Empty Nester life is different for everyone and truthfully I think that I am living the ultimate empty nester existence. We travel, we downsized, we can go out on a Tuesday if we feel like it and we got a dog!

When our youngest left the nest I had a really difficult time. I began writing about it and Adventures of Empty Nesters was created. Fast forward 4 ½ years later and this blog has become a fabulous and fulfilling career! I am still writing about our empty nest but have expanded to our life adventures and working with cutting edge travel and tourism brands. Our sojourns around the world hopefully inspire others to get out and find adventure too!

But I do have a real home life too! I still pick up dog poop, take out the trash (only when Craig isn’t home) do yard work, get the plumbing fixed, do the marketing, cook, all the regular things that wives and spouses do.

 

However, I have a new title, Mother of the Bride! I love this title.

I have seen many of my college friends marry off their sons and daughters, wearing sparkling dresses and big, BIG beautiful smiles. I now I get to do this! Our daughter Alex is very independent with definite ideas about everything. So her wedding is exactly that. Hers. I really haven’t had to do very much other than bless an idea and be here for encouragement.

Her fiancé has been an integral part of the wedding process and she has really found her perfect match. That is the best part. I know I don’t have to worry about their future, these kids (they are 30) have their act together.

The wedding will be in Seattle because she went to college at the University of Washington and was so happy living there that she never returned to Southern California. This small, intimate urban-garden wedding will be everything that I ever hoped our daughter would experience!

Emotionally, I am all over place. One minute I am reading something from her childhood and bawling and the next I am calmly standing next to her as she gets her wedding dress fitted.

Empty Nester Thoughts

As we go through boxes from our 34 year marriage, we are trying to pare down all of our “stuff”. In our last home we had room to keep just about everything, but this one is much smaller and we need to purge. We have been doing this for quite some time and are almost near the end. Have you been doing this as well? Why do we have so much? I kept EVERYTHING! Every painting, Valentine’s Day & Mother’s Day card, report card, letter, project, you name it, I kept it!

One year when Alex was eight and Nick was three, Craig’s Christmas gift to us was a beautiful journal and letter he wrote to our kids and then I followed later with my own letter. Recently, I found them after twenty something years.

My heartwarming letter to Alex talked about the kind of person she was at the time: thoughtful, funny, clever, discerning, a rule follower, independent, charismatic, a leader. She still exhibits all of these traits plus many other wonderful ones. I wrote: “There is no greater gift in the world than being a mother. No job, no award, no amount of money could ever replace being a mother for you and your brother. I hope you will become one someday.” So, I guess Mother of the Bride or Groom is the ultimate “mother” event.

That much younger Suzanne was so sweet and so in love with her children and family and it was so special for me to find this. I still the feel same way. I think I could live on a desert island with just them, my books and few electronic devices. Maybe not, but you get the idea.

Our daughter is getting married – I will be Mother of the Bride! Woo Hoo!

Our daughter is getting married! What does this mean? How will things change? Our family life will continue to be wonderful and fulfilling and Brent will be the perfect addition to the Stavert family. Boy are we lucky.

I am sharing this with you because life is real and raw sometimes and some of you think I just bounce from hotel to hotel and country to country. (Well I do, but I worked hard to achieve this job and lifestyle.) Anyway, we all enjoy these wonderful family milestones and Adventures of Empty Nesters has allowed me to share them with you.

It is nice to know that you are not alone and all of us have ups and downs and triumphs and heartache. My Dad was very ill and passed away not long ago and I wrote about that experience. I opened up and bared my broken heart. Many of you related to that as well.

I am thrilled to share the HAPPY adventures too! Today’s political climate and news are so negative and I am hungry for positive uplifting news. I  bet you are too!  So.. In just about one month I will be Mother of the Bride and I am over the moon! Thanks for reading!

 

Have any of your children gotten married?

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