Not being an analytical, numbers person, I'm not sure of the date, but the occasion is well remembered. Barb and Rob had just brought their second daughter, Amanda Kay, home from the hospital. I stayed a day or so to help out, and changed her so much, I almost used up all her diapers. It was time for me to go home.

My first glance of her told me she might grow up tall. After being around a number of newborns, it's easy to figure this out. Their little hands and feet will tell you,if you're paying close attention, and I was. This one already showed signs of growing long.

The next few years seemed to hurry so fast, as Amanda kept growing.

Before I hardly realized it, she was scurrying down the sidewalk on her skates, or getting good at riding a bike. Even then I sensed those years were hurrying by too fast, and they did. The next thing I knew she was walking across a high school stage, spurring her classmates on to proclaim it was their time to shine.

I remember something her father said that day, that graduation declares how well parents have raised their kids, and it spoke accolades of them. Miss Mandy did them proud.

While her older sister, Krissy, majored in a business degree, Mandy drenched herself in psychology. Later she would add an education degree, but first things first, Mandy didn't realize it then, but she needed to be in all those brainy classes so she could become a lifetime buddy to the psychology major she would someday marry.

The fist time I saw them together, over some board game, I think, it was so perfectly obvious how well they fit together. Even with all their psychology, they hadn't yet figured that out, but eventually they did, and that's why we're having a wedding in only a few more days.

Mandy's Mom, "A Chelsea Morning", seems to be surviving all the planning and preparation. And my part in this blending of hearts is so easy.

It began while I was still in Grand Junction last year, when Mandy and I were driving somewhere, and she told me she had a secret that she just had to tell somebody. They'd decided to get married.

No matter what events stood out in her childhood, or which ones may follow, the day she told me her secret is the one I'll most remember.

So Grand Ma's getting gussied up, in a beautiful new dress, a billowy flowing not drab beige, more a hint of light rose. A dropped away from the waistline layered satin effect, that hopefully will camouflage my older lady pouch, and if it doesn't, perhaps the irregular hemline will distract. But I don't think many people will be checking me out, when they see my Mandy in her wedding Gown.

So I'll just wear ear rings that match my dress, and shoes I can dance in, and travel over the mountains to see the used to be little girl entrust her life, her hopes and dreams, her future, to a very deserving man.

Congratulations A and M. Much Love, Grand Ma.