(no subject)

We had a ton of fun in Gatlinburg except for the fact that the WiFi at the resort sucked. What contact we had with the outside world was through my cellphone, which was pretty good for chatting at least. I think my niece was highly amused by gidget_zb and penguinspy42 because I forgot to log out of BeeJive when we were driving down to Pigeon Forge to go see Breaking Brains. I loved, loved, loved spending time with my family. I miss them so much, and because my middle brother wasn't along, there was a decisive lack of drama. We got to do MagiQuest, which was amazing (and I got a cool wand), my sister-in-law and I went on an unexpected hike that netted some gorgeous photos (and still apologizing for it this week because a one-hour drive turned into four hours, oops), we did Thanksgiving dinner at the resort, browsed a huge Christmas shop in Pigeon Forge, got fresh fudge and tea in Gatlinburg and more. Mike was horrified by the overall tackiness of the tourist areas, but loved the gorgeous mountain views. He got the above shot with my iPhone 4S, which has an amazing camera. I'll be sure to get more photos up.

So Mike's been here nearly 10 days now, and the bulk of it was spent not at home. Now that we're back, the definitely learning curve has fallen into place as we're figuring out how to mesh our lives together. Every day, it seems we get some sort of signal that he's not going back. Monday, it was his Social Security card arriving in the mail, today it was him getting a phone number of his own here.

Here's a couple of observations from the past few days. I noticed when I got married that there were very few candid looks at the beginning of marriage (even though we've been married 20 months, but still ...), but here's mine:

( Marriage musings under the cut )

So, I think our fears are proving unfound, and already it feels like to me that he's always been here. It's just going to get better.