When First Lady Laura Bush packed the last of her White House things off to Dallas in January, she didn’t even know how to use a computer. Now, her daughter says, she’s a regular thumb-typer on a new Blackberry – and so is the former President.

“It’s funny to see them on their Blackberries. They didn’t have Blackberries in office,” their daughter Jenna Hager, 27, tells People. “And now it’s funny to get emails from them – even when I know they’re traveling.”

So have they mastered typing with their thumbs? “They’re learning,” says Hager. “My mom is pretty slow.”

As for Hager, a Baltimore 6th-grade teacher who celebrated her first wedding anniversary in May with husband Henry Hager, she’s still learning the secrets to a successful marriage: “We’ve only been married a year, so I don’t know if I’m any guru on marriage. I think it’s just to stay really supportive and active in each other’s lives.” Hager, who traveled with UNICEF during her father’s presidency, was in New York Thursday to launch her latest project with the organization, called Next Generation Initiative. Her twin sister, Barbara, is also involved.

“When I returned home from Latin America and the Caribbean, I realized that there really wasn’t much for our generation – my generation—Generation X and Y – to do to get involved with UNICEF,” Hager said at the launch party at The Gates nightclub. “So together, 30 of us formed UNICEF’s Next Generation. Right now, around the world, 25,000 kids die every day of preventable things like malnutrition, dehydration. It’s our goal to get our generation activated so that one day zero kids die of things we can prevent.”

Source, Bauer-Griffin

Sure, Jenna Hager was excited about planning her May 10 nuptials to Henry Hager — but not nearly as much as First Lady Laura Bush.

“She did start calling me Momzilla!” Laura admits on an upcoming episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show (airing Wednesday, May 28).

Adds Jenna, 26: “She liked the details more than I did!”

Laura says, “It really kind of hurt my feelings.”

Still, Jenna, who just attended her husband’s graduation, says she was glad to have her mother’s input.

“She’s just really good with details about parties — I would not have thought of some of the details,” says Jenna, who jokes her appearance on DeGeneres’ show was “sort of like a therapy session.”

Her daughter’s wedding isn’t the only milestone for the First Lady. In January, she will be vacating the White House after eight years.

“It’s a long time to live in the White House and to have that kind of stress,” she says. “There are a lot of things I’m looking forward to.”

She says she’s “going to keep a little book of things that I want to do … like garden.”

Jokes Jenna, “Today she said, ‘I just can’t wait to garden.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, right!’”

Source

WENN

For those not among the 200 friends and family members invited to the Crawford, Texas, ranch for next month’s wedding of first daughter Jenna Bush to fiancé Henry Hager, the bride-to-be is providing a brief preview.

“I was raised in Texas and it just felt right,” Bush, 26, said of holding the festivities in the Lone Star State rather than the White House, according to The Washington Post, citing the upcoming issue of Vogue.

“It means a lot to Henry and me to be outdoors,” she’s quoted as saying. “We wanted something organic and low key.”

Bush does say that the Executive Mansion initially was a consideration. But then, “That’s not really my personality. There’s a glamor to it, I know, but Henry and I are far less glamorous than the White House.”

Given Texas temps that time of year, the May 10th event will not commence until 7:30 p.m. – after the sun goes down. Dinner and dancing underneath a tent are to follow.

The bride’s twin sister, Barbara, will serve as maid of honor and the single bridesmaid.

The Wedding Dress
Also on hand: 14 attendants, to be dressed in short chiffon green, blue, yellow and lavender dresses by native Texas designer Lela Rose, whose wedding collection, launched in fall 2006, is described on her Web site as “a pairing of unconventional fabrics and techniques that are trademarks of the designer.”

More traditional is the choice of designer for the bridal gown itself: Oscar de la Renta, who has been a favorite of presidential wives for several administrations. This may explain why President Bush joked last month: “I had to face some very difficult spending decisions and I’ve had to conduct sensitive diplomacy. That’s called planning for a wedding.”

Laura Bush wore a de la Renta gown at the 2005 inaugural ball, as well as other creations by him for various formal occasions, and she and Jenna were seen visiting the New York designer’s showroom in February.

But the so-described “major traditionalist” in the group appears to be groom-to-be Hager – who reportedly plans to adhere to superstition and not gaze upon his future wife’s dress (not even in sketches or photos) until she meets him at the altar.

Source

WENN

There’s a happy post-script to Jenna Bush’s non-fiction 2007 book, Ana’s Story: A Journey of Hope – the tale of a 17-year-old single mother in Panama who is living with HIV.

“I took Ana’s baby to get her HIV test,” the first daughter, 26, informed a convention of young Jewish activists Tuesday at the Washington Hilton, reports The Washington Post.

“She’s negative,” Bush revealed, as her audience burst into applause.

Speaking before a “Make It Matter” luncheon hosted by United Jewish Communities – whose Web site described its special guest as an “international children’s rights advocate, New York Times bestselling author and daughter of President George W. Bush and Mrs. Laura Bush – Bush said, “I ignorantly thought when I met Ana that she would be scared or have trust issues.”

Her assumption proved wrong, the author and bride-to-be admitted.

“All this anger had evaporated. She was living such a positive life,” said Bush. “It’s a lesson to all of us that there are people carrying heavy burdens but who live with such optimism.”

WENN

Jenna Bush is planning her wedding to fiancé Henry Hager in a private ceremony on May 10th. Sources say that the wedding will be held at the president’s 1,600-acre Crawford, Texas ranch.

Sources also say that Jenna wanted a small wedding and she has already picked out her bridesmaids.

The couple announced their engagement in August. Laura Bush said that she thought a White House wedding would be a lot of fun, but they are respecting Jenna’s wishes in having a private ceremony away from the White House press corps and paparazzi.

Hager consulted Jenna’s twin sister, Barbara, regarding his intentions on marrying her. Outside the president’s cabin at Camp David, Hager asked George and Laura Bush for their daughter’s hand in marriage.

What a gentleman!

WENN