When my sister got engaged last year, and I found out that her wedding was going to be in Austin, I immediately texted Greis and asked her to be my date. She only lives a couple hours’ drive away, and even though I’m excited for my sister and looking forward to her wedding, it was also basically an excuse to hang out with one of my favorite people for a weekend.

When Chris and I got back together, Greis joked that I was going to ditch her for my boyfriend. I said I wouldn’t, mainly because (a) I don’t ditch my friends – that’s a big no-no for me. And (b) Chris is kind of a quiet guy and my family can be really overwhelming when there’s a lot of them in one place. I didn’t want to scare him off. When my sister was in town and met Chris, she made a point of letting me know that it was totally cool with her if I had both Chris and Greis as my “dates” for the wedding.

We went back and forth about it a lot. He had some custody/childcare stuff to handle on his end, and I was worried about how it would look to a lot of my family. I haven’t seen the majority of my extended family since before I had Lucy. So it felt weird to go from a few years ago, when I was married with one kid, to seeing them again now, divorced with 2 kids and a boyfriend.

But, when it comes down to it? I want Chris to be there. I tend to get nervous about a lot of things, and he has a way of calming me down when I get anxious (like, say, about flying, or handling the kids when they’re completely off their routine).

Not to mention that, you know, I want my family to meet him because I’m kind of in love with him and stuff.

Sooooo, on Thursday, I will be boarding a plane with my parents, my kids, and Chris, and flying to Texas for my sister’s wedding. It’ll be Lucy’s first time on an airplane, and the first time Catie’s been on one since she was 3 years old. I was nervous about flying with both kids, but I figure that if we have four adults and two kids, that’s a pretty good ratio. And with 6 of us, we’ll basically just take up an entire row on the plane, and hopefully it’ll all go smoothly.

And it’s funny, because Chris and I have never traveled together, and somehow I didn’t imagine that our first little getaway together would involve staying with my children and my parents. I’m going to nickname it the Vacation House of Awkwardness.

And Greis will be there with us too! Five adults and two kids in a four-bedroom house. Yeah. This won’t be weird at all.

I kid, I’m actually looking forward to it and I think it’ll be a lot of fun. But it is weird to sleep in the same house with my boyfriend and my parents. It just is.

Now! I need to go work on my maid-of-honor speech for the reception. Which I still haven’t written. For a wedding that’s taking place in 5 days. And I have a fear of public speaking. Honestly, what could POSSIBLY go wrong? *cue maniacal laughter*

Wish me luck.