A Bunch of Grapes

A few pictures to start us out...
















I'm a married woman! And now my blog title doesn't make much sense, as I'm officially a Grapes. Oh well! I've been getting lots of mixed reactions to the new last name. A few people at work have checked with me to make sure that's really my new last name and that my co-workers aren't playing a joke on me, yet one of the bosses loves it and always greets me with "Hello Mrs. Grapes".

Anyway, as everyone should know by now (I hope...haven't posted on the blog in forever though) Chris and I got married in Las Vegas on Sept 24th. We made the decision to get married there as we thought it would be fun, and more stress-free...plus it would give his parents the chance to see Vegas while they were here!

After what seemed like forever, Chris arrived in Boise at the end of August. His parents followed a few weeks after and were able to stay with us for about a month. While they were here, they went to San Fransisco, and we all took a trip to Yellowstone together before flying to Vegas.

Vegas was pretty good...for the first few days anyway! We were able to have both sets of parents there, as well as my sister, niece, grandparents, and Chris' good friend Richie. It was a nice, intimate ceremony and the chapel we used was wonderful! It was the Chapel of the Flowers, and every aspect of our time there was great. We loved how the pictures turned out. We also loved that they broadcast the wedding live, so our friends not attending in person could attend virtually. The wedding was also available to watch for two weeks after, which was a good perk. We had a WONDERFUL little dinner/reception afterward at Joe's Stone Crab in Caesar's Palace. Nice toasts, good company, delicious food, and great service! Really the day was just perfect! After the wedding was over and most of our family had left, Vegas got a bit old. It's such an expensive place! And right before we left for it, we found out my car needed a new transmission that wouldn't be covered under warranty, so we didn't have as much extra money to spend as we'd hoped we would. Regardless, it was a fun experience and I'm glad we had the wedding there.

Life since then has settled into a nice pattern. Chris has been taking care of the apartment, and our cats, and making me delicious meals everyday. He's the best husband I could ask for. :) I recently got a new position at CWI too. It's still in the Registrar's office but it's a job that will allow me to use my English degree (for editing the school catalog) and it's salaried, which has many benefits (the best of which was a large raise!) This is going to help a lot as Chris still has at least a couple more months of unemployment ahead. We've decided that starting in January, he's going to take some classes from CWI because I get a great discount on tuition and he doesn't have a degree yet. I think this will be a great thing for him and am excited about it! We are hoping he can go to school full-time and work part-time. Hopefully he can finish his associate's degree in about 16 months, if he goes every semester. And this month he is working on a novel for the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short). What he has so far is great...I'm consistently blown away by the level of talent he has! If you'd like to follow his story, he set up a blog for it at: www.chrisgrapes.co.uk/nano


So all-in-all, life is wonderful! I love my husband. I love my job. I love my life! Sorry it's been so long since I updated. I will try to do better in the future. And you'll just have to forgive the outdated blog title for now. :)