Meeting the Folks

This is the next installment in a rather long series about how Daniel and I met–and have become engaged. Click on the “Our Story” tag for context.

“The only bummer about this weekend,” I told my sister as we did some quick shopping the morning after I met Daniel in person, “is that I don’t get to see the Little Miss while I’m in town.”

Anna agreed that this was a bummer, and we continued on.

A few minutes later, she told me that I’d get to see the Little Miss after all. “I told Daniel that if he brought her by Mom and Dad’s house around 1:30, he’d get a chance to meet Daniel.”

Ah.

Yes.

Because introducing Daniel to the whole of my family was definitely my intent. (Not!)

Nevertheless, when Daniel knocked on the front door, a decent contingency were present. Mom and Dad, of course–but also Anna, Daniel, and the Little Miss (I feel like either Joshua or Grace were also there–but I could be wrong).

He knocked, I introduced him to Mom and Dad and the others. We sat down and had brief awkward conversation. Then we left.

For our first date, Daniel took me first to Lincoln’s quilt museum. We enjoyed perusing the quilts hand in hand, commenting on composition and construction. I spent way too much time explaining how quilts are made, what different designs are, and why certain quilts were more difficult to construct than others. Daniel listened patiently.

The last exhibit was a collection of signature quilts–and we had fun looking over the names penned or embroidered across the tops. We talked about family names, about women signing their names Mrs. Husband’s-first-name Last-name, about names we liked or didn’t like. We found someone with the first name “Happy” and Daniel decided that was a great name. I reminded myself throughout our conversation that I did not have permission to think about meshing our families names, about calling myself “Mrs. Daniel Garcia”, about the horror of having a child “Happy Garcia.”

As we left the museum, I apologized for my enthusiastic talkativeness. Daniel assured me that he enjoyed it–that he was interested in hearing about what I find interesting. I didn’t exactly believe him, but we were on to the next thing.

We got back in the car and Daniel drove me out to his parents’ house.

You see, a couple of weeks back, Daniel had mentioned that his parents would be traveling to see him in a little over a month’s time. He’d asked if maybe I wanted to drive down with them to Wichita.

I’d agreed and our second meeting was planned.

As the time drew nearer, Daniel’s mother thought it best that I meet them before the long car trip to Wichita–so Daniel and I took time during our date to meet his dad (Paula was out of town that weekend, so I could only meet Rick.)

Daniel and I sat on opposite ends of the couch, talking books with Rick and with Daniel’s younger sister. We had chanced upon a congenial topic and conversation generally moved smoothly–except that I kept wishing I were sitting just a little closer to Daniel, that he were holding my hand across the couch instead of holding his own in his lap.