When You Know

30 - Families are all about sacrifices, and this is just mine.

I swear it took us a full week to eat our way through the leftovers from Christmas. It wasn't until New Year's that we started to run a little low, and I'm sure that was only because we had company again. Tanner, Morgan and Willow had come over, not that she could have eaten anything yet, and Jet also had his best friends Ryder and Jasper over, who spent their evening hanging out around the TV playing video games and eating a mountainload of pizza and leftovers. Apparently teenage boys can eat a lot.

I was exhausted in the few days after New Years. It had been a long couple weeks since I finished school, with preparing for and recovering from Christmas, and I was often finding myself falling asleep leaning against Ruben on the outdoor setting in the backyard during the evenings. He seemed to always smell of wood, saltwater and sunscreen, which I assumed was the result of him and Jet installing the outdoor shower next to the shed the past few days to avoid all four of us dragging sand inside constantly post-surf. I was pretty useless in the construction process, wearing my new work boots but knowing nothing about anything to be of any real help. All I could really do was bring them sunscreen and cold drinks when they looked too hot, and passed them tools when they asked for it.

In the end, it looked amazing, and I was so proud of Ruben and Jet for their talents. The shower screen was made of horizontal wooden slats, with small gaps in between to allow for water flow and to support growth of the creeping passionfruit vines Mum planted on the outside to provide more cover from people seeing in. They weren't big yet, but I'm sure they would be soon enough.

Ruben installed a solar heating system to the water, which he tapped into from the plumbing in the shed as he already had pipes and a sink in there. And Jet was in charge of levelling the ground for the shower floor on a slight declining slope to allow for run off and to water the vines, mixing and laying the cement, and tiling the floor with big chunks of flat slate. I was glad I could help with that part at least.

Everyone has been quite productive the past few days, including Mum who had spent a lot of her holidays so far with Morgan doing wedding research and making the most of her free time to get things organised. Even though it was set to be a smallish wedding like the Scotts' and Mum wanted to do most of the decorations and flowers herself, there still seemed to be a lot that needed to be organised.

So far they had secured a venue, which the four of us had visited a few days ago. They had no weekend dates left for the month they wanted to get married, but they were happy with the Friday that was available. And I was just happy for a day off school.

Ruben, Tanner, Jet, Uncle Landon and I had gone shopping for our groomsmen outfits. We took our pants from Tanner's wedding after he convinced Ruben that he didn't care that they'd have the same pants colour in their weddings, which he had paired with a white shirt, brown suspenders and brown shoes. To stand out from everyone else, Ruben also bought a dark burgundy suit jacket for himself, and matching bow ties for all of us.

Mum's only instructions to us were pick something we like and to not go overboard. When Ruben asked her for a colour scheme and how formal he needed to go, she laughed at him and said, "Do we seem like formal people to you, Ruby? Just find something neutral that you're comfortable in. You're the ones that have to wear it all day after all. But Morgan will be wearing a dark burgundy, maroonish dress, if that's any help."

Hence why Ruben went with the burgundy jacket over the black, and why we took pictures and sent them to Morgan for matching approval before purchasing them. She was quietly impressed with our choices, and complimented Jet and I for making sure Ruben picked something nice. But really, it was all Ruben. He had a plan and he executed it to perfection, as if he had been organising this for years. Knowing him with Mum, he probably had this all picked out ten years ago.