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Friday, June 5, 2026

Alana gets engaged

 I am taking a break from health related topics.

There is so much icky stuff in the news these days, that I am delighted announce that my youngest daughter, Alana got engaged last week.

Her boyfriend Tim had asked her a very sensible question.

How surprised do you want to be?

Her answer -

Just surprised enough to know that I should have my nails down.

His response

When we are on our trip to the UK, make sure you have nice nails.

The trip was during the last weeks of May. Her nails were lovely. So she knew it was coming, but he still managed to surprise her.

They both love magic and enjoy going to see local magicians.

Tim made an arrangement with a local British street magician to be in a predetermined location. Friends of Alana and Tim were meeting up with them that day. Their job was to get the ring to the magician.

Coming out of the Tower of London, exactly as Tim had anticipated, Alana immediately spotted the magician and made a bee line in his direction.

Tim had some fun with it “We don’t have a lot of time because we are meeting up with our friends, so only one or two tricks”

When the ring appeared in one of the illusions and Tim got down on his knee, Alana was NOT expecting it.

Their friends were in hiding, video taping the entire interaction.

It was perfect.

Are there any New York Times Games folks out there?

I did my daily WORDLE on the day of their engagement.

The answer was AGREE

I thought that was the perfect word. After all, she said yes!

When I posted that in the family chat, my older daughter Lauren thought my excitement about the word was a bit of a stretch.

But, then I did the spelling bee

Even Lauren agreed that having the word engaged there was quite the fun coincidence.

These little oddities started before Alana was even born.

Several days before her birth, her gender was still unknown to us. (Not because we wanted to be surprised, she just wouldn’t show us the goods) We had just settled on the names.If she was a girl she would be Alana. A boy would have been Adam.

My mother in law was in town on ‘baby watch’ doing the Sunday crossword puzzle. She called me over in amazement with the following two answers in the puzzle:

103 Across: It’s a girl. 34 Down: Alana

(actual puzzle appears below)

The family refers to it as Alanaland

Here is another example

The day following the engagement, they went to see Kenneth Branagh performing in the Tempest, and check out who was sitting right behind them! No, this is not AI. Yes it really is King Charles. The headline in all the British papers the next day was “King Charles makes surprise visit to Royal Shakespeare Theater!”

Alanaland!

Congratulations to Alana and Tim may you have a lifetime of wonderful adventures together