Details, Details, Details

So you all, or at least several of you, wanted more details on the interesting development in Miss Jenny's life, and of course, interesting developments in her life touch our lives as well.

If you've been around very long you know that we are hyper weird on courtship issues, totally out of the mainstream here, and that both of our married daughters had their first kiss the old fashioned way, at the alter after they were married.  Our girls don't date.  We don't believe in recreational romance or serial boyfriends.  We do not despise or look down on those who practice otherwise, we just do what we do because we believe it is is best for our family.

But 'courtship' isn't the goal, it is a means to an end,and there is no planned bridge burning on the path we have laid out toward that end. If any our adult children said, "Look, we think you're NUTS and we are NOT doing this," well, we'd be a little sad and disappointed or greatly so, depending on the attitude and alternative choices involved, but we would maintain our relationship over our preference for Courtship, because, frankly, we prefer our kids over our philosophy.

Also, there is no single vision of courtship that is the One Right Way, just as there are other ways of dating and mating that work for other people.

Just as each of our children are individuals, so each of the young men who expresses an interest in them is an individual, and the combination is yet another incredibly unique and personal reality, and so we treat it as such.

The biggest difference between version 3.0 of The Common Room Courtship is that, unlike her sisters, Jenny is not committing to Marriage Unless Something Major Comes Up.  She only committed to focusing on this young man and agreeing to get to know him better, with the understanding that they are considering whether they think marriage is in the cards at some place aways down the road. 
There is still extremely limited physical contact- a hug of greeting and goodbye, a masculine arm gingerly placed across the church pew behind Jenny's shoulders.  As I explained to Jenny, "He asked to get to know you better.  Cuddling is not the way to get to know somebody better, it's what you do once you already know somebody extremely well."=)

As for alone time- well, they ride together in his car from Strider's house to the church building (20 minutes).=)  They rode the Ferris Wheel together at State Fair.  Over. And over.  And over. (it was Jenny's first time on a Ferris Wheel). He comes over to Strider's house when we are there and they go off to the family room or living room to talk or read together while the rest of us are doing something else in the next room over.  Pip has wickedly suggested that Jenny pack a picnic lunch for four, and the young couple can take Blynken and Nod to the park. ;-P

They are taking it slower than the other two couples because they are younger, Jenny is less certain, and he is less established in his field than he would like (he has a work ethic, though - last year he was working three jobs).

So who is he? 

He's a Christian, a member of our local congregation, home-school grad, Eagle Scout, one of four children- he has an older brother, a younger sister, and a twin sister.

I don't know when we first mentioned him on the blog.  He was the groomsman paired up with Jenny at Strider and the HG's wedding, and if you are thinking there is something a wee bit suspicious about that, well, all I can say it wasn't *my* doing, but I did catch eyes with his father as those two came down the aisle, and we each knew what the other was thinking.=)

I said this in January of 2010:

Sunday at church Strider's cousin, a young man of around 19 or 20, helped out with Blynken and Nod.  He does this often, I suspect because as a Christian and an Eagle Scout, he takes seriously and personally a responsibility to be a good mentor to young boys.  He's also been very good for the FYB, whose status as the only boy and the baby has sometimes put him in need of a little rough and tumble of the male variety.

After church, Strider's cousin made Blynken a couple of paper airplanes

And I mentioned him again in the next month in reference to Blynken and Nod:

Strider, Shasta, a male cousin of Strider's, and one of the young college grad friends have also taken a personal interest in the boys and go out of their way to do things with them, to mentor them, to be important male models in their lives.  At church on Sunday Blynken is always sitting with one of these upstanding young men.

He was chiefly responsible for finding the bee tree on our property and getting the wild honey home to me last November.


He took my son squirrel hunting recently, and cooked the squirrel in our kitchen.

He fell into the Boy's Fort a couple years ago, and he's been coming to nearly every singing we've ever had for quite a while now.  He's done a lot of playing with the Boy over the years.

He's a tea party fan, and his dad thinks Rush Limbaugh is too liberal. 

He can climb anything- and does.  We have pictures of him in the rafters of our barn at the Equuschick and Shasta's house and he just swings up there like a monkey. He's kind of fearless about things like that.

He's dyslexic and listens to books on tape- he loves Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. He's incredibly gifted with his hands and makes some of the most brilliant armour out of pool noodles, PVC pipe, and duct tape:

He also sings tenor, a mark against him since both of my sons-in-law also sing tenor. I have instructed my daughters that any future suiters must sing bass.=)