MountainMornings

The Rocker is engaged! In a week of nothing but bad news from Texas to Nice, I thought it best to lighten the mood and announce our good news. Ms Cait, aka Aunt KiKi, said “Yes” and we couldn’t be happier.

She was young when I first met her, barely 18, but I could tell they were mad about each other. All I knew was that she had graduated Red Bank Catholic, and attended college in PA. But then the Rocker told me she had traveled the world with her Jersey Shore Irish Dance Troupe, and I was smitten. She’s one of MY people!

Over the years our family has vacationed together, spent holidays together, and the happy couple even spent a month with the Bride and Groom in Nashville after Hurricane Sandy swept them out of Asbury Park. “What can I do?” Cait would always ask me in the kitchen, and together we would make culinary tasks fun and creative. Her Mama, Ellen, raised her right.

But of course you know all of this if you’ve been reading along since I started this blog to try and make sense out of another wedding six years ago! I was planning a destination wedding in Cville while two extremely busy Vandy residents were doctoring in Nashville. Today it’s a different story. Plus, it’s like the second child, I’ve been through the Willy Wonka wilderness of venues and cakes, I know what to do.

Cait is a proud feminist, a Millennial who is not afraid of the term. She keeps me up to date on the latest challenge to young, female artists; it seems she hates censorship just as much as her betrothed. And she keeps Bob up to date on the latest video games to challenge the mind. She is an excellent artist herself, with a wide ranging, multimedia portfolio. And she knows how to get things done; she created and helped organize the first Asbury music and art festival years ago.

When they told us they were moving to LA, I admit I was worried. Once a Jersey Girl, always a Jersey Girl. Cait has a posse of very loyal girlfriends, and her whole family lives on the East Coast. But they are an amazing team, and one by one – a sister here, a friend there – their coterie of new and old Left Coast friends has expanded. She landed an exciting job at the new contemporary art museum, the Broad, and settled right in.

The first time we visited them in LA, we walked down the block to their neighborhood farmers market and Cait knew almost every vendor by name. She has an easy charm, and a quick wit. Sometimes I catch my son looking at her, as if he can’t believe his luck. Her beauty is breathtaking.

And so the beat goes on. Great Grandma Ada is always reminding the happy couple she no longer buys green bananas (hint hint). And I am more relaxed now, after all the Mother of the Groom doesn’t have quite the same level of responsibility as the MOB. Ellen is still living in NJ and we get along like long lost sisters. Knowing these two creative spirits of ours, their wedding will be magical on any Coast they choose!

This was Thanksgiving on a beach years ago when the Love Bug was a baby. See how Ms Cait leans in! Welcome to our family, we love you like a daughter already!