Sittin’ on GO!!!

Here is the update everyone has been asking for.  My apologies for taking so long but the last 9 months have been a whirlwind!!

After we got the Imagination home last November, we had her pulled from the water to check for any damage we might have had when we got stuck on the submerged pier.  Turns out, we found rope wound around one of the shafts so we are guessing we got tangled up in ropes that were tied to the pier.  With the boat out of the water we decided to go ahead and have the bottom painted.  Paul at Rock Harbor is awesome but he found over 300 blisters that needed to be repaired!  SO…the boat was out of the water most of December and part of January for repairs.

After the holidays we started getting prepared for next steps!!

January – We bought a dinghy.

February – We put the houseboat on the market and sold my car.

April – We spent countless hours cleaning out attics, sorting, packing, hauling off junk, downsizing, landscaping, and doing all those little things around the house that we hadn’t found time to do!  We also had a yard sale and put a lot of stuff in storage.  We put the house on the market and it sold in 6 days!! The houseboat sold 2 days after we signed the contract on the house!

May – We had a wonderful week in Cancun with a great bunch of boat dock friends (22 people total).

Our oldest daughter got married to her love in Gatlinburg!!  It was a beautiful, happy day!

June – Our youngest daughter and her husband had their second child, our 4th grandchild!  She had a homebirth and it was an amazing experience!!

   

We also closed on our house and moved onto the boat.  We now have a full storage unit and all the rest of our belongings are on the boat.

July – We spent most of the month getting the boat updated, organized, and outfitted for our journey.  Lots of changes – We replaced the windows in the master stateroom, painted and sealed closets, installed new carpet and flooring, fixed the stove, just to name a few!

Before

After

Mike officially quit his job on the 31st!

August – This month we finally got to take the boat out for some trial runs.  It was amazing to be back out on the water…we have missed it SO much!  Had to replace an impeller on the port engine but other than that no engine or generator issues.  Mike also got the new inverter installed!  This is a HUGE new addition that will make our trip more comfortable and cost effective.

Here’s our first trip out…to downtown Nashville.  It was a beautiful day!

We closed out the month with our Bon Voyage party.  It was a lot of fun and we had so many friends and family come by to wish us well.  There were lots of tears and hugs and love!!  We are going to miss everyone!!  We keep telling them we’ll be right back… a year or so goes by so quickly!  We plan to come home for visits along the way and there will be lots of video chatting going on I’m sure!

Pictures taken at the Bon Voyage party!

Whew!  I have tried to summarize the last nine months but I must pause and tell you that it has been pretty crazy.  Along with all the major things we did, we lived our lives, hung out with our friends, loved our family, and all the usual day-to-day things that must be taken care of!  I think back to last October when we went to Little Rock on a whim to look at a boat…then fast forward to now and it is…well, I can’t find the words to describe how I feel.  Our lives are completely different.  It has been stressful, overwhelming, and hard.  It has been thrilling, fun, and exciting!  It has strengthened us, not only as people but as a couple.  So many people have said they don’t know how we have done so much in such a short time.  The answer is simple…we have just done one thing at a time, focused on whatever needed to be done next, and then did it as a team.

We are REALLY doing this!!!!  In two short weeks we will pull out of Rock Harbor and turn left…let the adventure begin!!