marital flashback

Every morning this week I've awoken thinking about what I was doing on the same day one year ago.

It was wedding week and things were hopping around here--the main thing hopping being my nerves as I scrambled around taking care of final details such as caterers and flowers and ministers and bagpipers and out of town guests.

Which I could have taken care of sooner except we had gone on a mission trip to Nicaragua the week before our wedding.

Because my nutjob husband-to-be had pursuaded me was a fabulous idea.

Because there is nothing that says "romance" like cleaning rats and chicken dookie out of barns, or standing in the scorching sun in a third world country ten minutes from the Equator painting a building instead of doing something lame like staying home and having someone paint my nails.

At the time I had murderous thoughts towards my beloved groom, but now I'm over it. Now I look back on it and laugh. Hahahahaha. See? I'm laughing.

Anyway, in the year since our wedding the events of that crazy week have formed a blurry memory of laugher and family and friends, and being insanely busy from morning until night. It was utterly exhausting and totally exhilarating, and we loved every single moment of it.

My BFF Carol was never more than ten feet from my side all week. She made sure the wedding train ran on time all week long and just about wore herself out in the process. (I later thanked her with All About Carol Day during which I had her pampered senseless at the spa, and being the good friend that I am, I had the exact same treatment just to make sure the quality of service was up to snuff).

There was a group shopping expedition where we accompanied my darling sister in law Carol to Nordstroms so she could stock up on cute shoes which she can never find in England. Watching someone else spend a butt load of dough on cute shoes was almost as much fun as us doing it ourselves.

There was the day that the two Carols, my girls, my son in law, and my grandsons helped clean up the Butt Ugly Boat. We had bought it just days before we left on the mission trip and it needed a serious defunk-ifying before we could spend our wedding night on it.

Then there was my bachelorette party and wine tasting on the Butt Ugly Boat which was a total blast as best as I can remember. Mommy had way too much medicine that night.

And there are so many other unforgetable memories packed into that week:

Like the memory of picking up the shipment of flowers from Hawaii that made the whole boat smell of orchids, and converting our friend Mike's houseboat into the world's largest floating florist chiller so the reception centerpieces wouldn't croak in the ungodly heat.

And the memories of our dock friends scurrying about taking care of endless last minute errands and making Morley and me feel like a million bucks.

And the party at Big Creek Tavern the night before the wedding where we partied like rock stars with our out-of-town family and friends. Our friend Tommy performed for us and we stayed up way past our bedtime that night. Also, we had way too much medicine.

And memories of Dennis being the greatest Best Man who ever lived. And being with family and friends on such a joyous and much anticipated occasion. And so on. And so on. And so on.

But mostly we remember this moment: