Big News!

Okay, this is way, way overdue.  There is actually a fair bit of news to share.  We'll go in chronological order.

I think it was about a month ago, when we had a rare weekend free, when we brought our boat back home.  Earendil has been up at Sale Creek Marina for, I think, about 6 months now.  We did some work on it, then they did some work on it.  Finally, they got the motor running, the weather cleared up, and we had our chance to bring our baby home.  It was one of those very uneventful trips, so I won't bore you with the details.  As we learned from our cruising days, uneventful = good!  The weather was gorgeous.  The current was with us.  And we made it home in less than 4 hours.  Pretty good!  Pulling into the marina was a little surreal.  It had been nearly a year and a half since we'd left Gold Point on a chilly November morning.  Jeff was awake to welcome us home with a wave (he was asleep when we'd left).  I managed to back the boat into our new slip on the first try.  Since it had been over 6 months since I'd driven the boat, I felt really good about it.  This captain's still got it!

It's great to have the boat home, a full-circle trip (some of it over ground, yes, but a hell of a trip nonetheless).  We've been too busy to take it out for a sail, but we're hoping to be able to take up fun sailing again now that things have calmed down a little.

In other wonderful news, Trevor has a new job!  He'll actually be starting in another week.  So exciting!  When we came back, he took the first job that came along in order to take some of the job-hunt pressure off of me.  Once I found a job, he started looking for a more permanent position, but the search took some time.  But finally something came through for him.  He'll be working for Chattanooga CARES, a non-profit HIV outreach organization, doing educational programs and community outreach stuff.  I'm not sure exactly what he does, but it's actually a benefit-the-world kind of job.  Go Trevor!

And the biggest news?  We're married!  Yep, it finally happened.  Six months of planning, uncountable headaches and stress-induced meltdowns, and it went off beautifully.  The weather was questionable last Saturday.  It rained in the morning (but it's good luck! they told me).  When I came out of the mall after getting my makeup done, it was sprinkling rain again.  Crap, I thought it was finished!  But by the time I made it to the venue, the sun was peeking through the clouds.  The wind picked up.  Oh my, it was a breezy wedding (in more ways than one).  But we started on time.  Dad managed to fight back the tears and walked me down the aisle.  And there was Trevor.  I have never seen so many teeth in his head!  His smile was so huge and adorable!

He's so cute!

Our ceremony was very short and sweet.  Our friend Sharyl did an excellent job and sped things right along.  The ceremony was over before we knew it!  

Mr. and Capt. Wilson!

And then it was party time!  Food, drinks, cake, the usual awesomeness.  We felt very loved and were happy so many people came.  We ate. We drank.  We danced.

Dad did eventually cry, as we all knew he would.  Though he lasted considerably longer than anyone expected.  When they played "We've Only Just Begun", he finally lost it; it was Mom and Dad's wedding song over 40 years ago.  So when they danced, he cried like the big ole softy that he is. (Don't worry, Dad, I'm not posting a picture of that.)

At the end of the night, we headed off to the Chattanooga Choo Choo.  I got a great deal on a room, but when we got there (still in our wedding finery), the upgraded us to a train car.  For free!  So we slept in a train car on our wedding night.  We had room service the next morning (I think it was our most expensive meal of the honeymoon, actually), then headed home to clean up and pack for the trip.  We stopped and grabbed some leftovers from the wedding food (couldn't let it go to waste!), and then we were off to Gatlinburg!  We got to our cute little cabin and settled in.  Hot tub time!  (No pictures of that either.)  We ate leftovers that night (so great!).

It was a most relaxing trip.  We saw a movie one day.  We went to the aquarium another.  And that was about it.  We enjoyed the hot tub.  And the jacuzzi.  We had a little charcoal grill outside, so we had steak one night and lobster the next.  We ate very well at our little cabin.  And we felt so refreshed when we came home on Thursday.

Now it's back to the real world.  The name change process has started (I'm taking his name, not the other way around).  I think it will take me forever to remember everywhere I have to change my name.  Bank accounts, credit cards, insurance, IRAs, car title.  (That last one just came to me.)  But we'll get through it.  Life has settled down a little bit.  At least it's less stressful.  No more wedding to plan!  No more job searching!  Now all we have to do is find a house.  (I know it's no small thing, but it's less daunting without everything else piled on top of it.)

Life is good.  We're happy.  The Wilsons. :)

Settling In and Settling Down

Two months since the last update; I'm such a slacker.

Alright, what's happened since early December?  The holidays.  Lots of them.  We spent the weekend before Christmas with Trevor's family, the weekend of Christmas with mine, and New Years with Trevor's again.  From the weekend before Thanksgiving until the weekend of New Years, we traveled 5 out of 7 weekends to one of our families' homes.  It was a lot of road-tripping, and we were exhausted.  So we took some time in January to relax.  Not a lot of time, but enough.

Somewhere in there, the boat went back in the water.  Yay!  And it's floating!  Double yay!  One of those warm weekends in January, we went up there with the intention of starting the motor and bringing Earendil home.  Alas, the motor wouldn't start.  Not surprising, considering the engine hadn't run since we hauled the boat out the first of July.  Sitting for six months is not good for an old, grouchy engine.  We figured we had air in the fuel lines, so we bled them.  In the process, we discovered another part that needed to be replaced.  Where fuel first goes into the engine, the threads were stripped out around the bleed nut.  It wasn't like this when we left the boat, so we'll chalk it up to another charming gift from Brunswick Landing Marina.  Thanks, guys.  Fortunately, it was a relatively easy part to replace.  With a 35-year-old engine, it can be tricky to find parts.  We've been very lucky so far.  Hopefully, nothing else will ever break ever again.  Right?  Trevor installed the new parts, but there was an issue with a bleed bolt.  The old one was too long for the new part.  The new bolt was too short.  Yikes!  Today, Trevor cut off a little bit of the old bolt, so hopefully we can install it and be good to go.  Maybe next weekend?  We would love to have our boat back soon.  I miss it!  And the weather has been crazy warm for this time of year.  It's been in the 60s all week.  Gorgeous!  Daffodils are blooming.  Not right for February.  Have we skipped winter this year?  Or are we going to get a cold-weather bitch-slap before it's over?  We'll see.  But for now we'll enjoy the warm weather while we can.

For me, work has been pretty good.  We moved from the old location on Main St. (7 minutes away) to a new place on Amnicola (15 minutes to get there, 20 minutes to get home).  We have so much more room in the new building!  It's pretty awesome.  And the commute still isn't bad.  My coworker also moved down to Florida.  Is it wrong to say I'm super happy about it?  Might be wrong, but I'm not one to lie.  It's fantastic!  I am finally doing all of the testing on my own.  Things are running much more smoothly.  There are less errors.  I have measures in place to double-check myself all the time.  Life is good.  And I should be finding less and less of his missteps as time goes on and they come out of the system.  Dare I say it?  Yep, I'm awesome!  I actually love my job now that I'm on my own.

A really great bonus to the new location?  I'm ridiculously close to the Urban Rocks climbing gym.  AND work will reimburse me $25 a month if I go at least 8 times each month.  Sweet!  So now it's affordable and really, really convenient.  Thaddeus and I went yesterday and climbed to our little hearts' content.  I'm already feeling the soreness in my arms and shoulders.  Yowza!  But it's a good pain, right?  We'll go with that.  So I'll be doing that at least a couple of times a week.  In no time, I'll have arms like I had on the trip.  Buffness!

Trevor is still in the process of finding a permanent job.  The cafe is starting to drive him crazy.  He works really hard for much less pay than he deserves.  He's searching and applying.  Something is bound to come up soon.  He deserves it!

We've started the process of house shopping.  Last week, we turned in our paperwork to one bank to start the mortgage pre-approval process, and we'll do the same for another bank this week.  Hopefully, we'll hear something soon.  I didn't think getting a loan would be any problem, but the gap in our employment is a little scary to some lenders.  So we'll just wait and see what happens. We're hopeful!  And we look forward to having a house.  (I so badly want to grow a garden this summer.)

The wedding is less than 3 months away now.  Holy crap!  We've taken care of a lot of the planning, but there's always something more to do.  It'll be here in no time.  I can't wait.  It's going to be an awesome party!  I bought my shoes yesterday.  Yay, shoes!  (Yep, I get girly sometimes.)

I think I pretty much covered the latest and greatest developments.  Life is grand.  Sometime, I read the blogs of the folks still traveling, and I get a little jealous.  But then I think about hot running water and all the electricity we can use, and I feel a little better.  I still like the idea of going back out there one day, but not yet.  We've got some boring old settling down to do, and we are so looking forward to it.  Bring on that picket fence!