While there are undoubtedly going to be readers of our blog (eventually) who are more interested in tales of our tedious and seemingly endless boat repairs than our personal lives, current (and vocal, I might add) readers have encouraged us to digress for a moment to tell you about our long weekend in Bermuda in November. We flew there to visit our great friends, Brett and Aida. Brett and Dallas have been friends ever since Brett had to fire Dallas when they were bartending together in college. (Dallas was immediately rehired after proving to their boss that he was not stealing money!)

 Although I knew him briefly in college, I became well acquainted with Brett in 2006 when he spontaneously decided to move from Kansas City to L.A. He slept on our couch for the first two months of his California residency whilst finding his own pad. We like to say that he was our live-in butler given his penchant for cooking and doing dishes, but he has many other redeeming qualities as well.

 Anyway, Dallas and Wes have organized bareboat-charter trips to the Keys or the Bahamas every year since 2001, and Brett came along for the first time on the trip to the Bahamas during Christmas break of 2007. While most of us were scuba diving off the coast of Grand Bahama Island, Brett went to the bar (surprise, surprise) where he met Aida, a Peruvian woman who was living and teaching Spanish in Nassau. They hit it off, and she ended up stowing away with us to Bimini, where she helped to make New Year’s Eve a night to remember for us all with her Peruvian rituals. A couple of days later, we all said good-bye to Aida and returned to Florida to make our respective ways back home. Come to find out, Brett took a couple of extra days of vacation to return to the Bahamas to see Aida again! And the rest is history, as they are now married and living together in Bermuda.

Aida Enjoys Sailing in Bimini

Brett & Aida

Their Neighborhood

 I noticed a couple of odd things during the first couple of days in Bermuda. For example, Brett and Dallas were being fairly secretive at times, while in the meantime, Aida (who apparently had been told that something major was going to happen between Dallas and I that weekend but wasn’t clear on what that something was), was asking me many questions about when and where Dallas and I were to marry. Thus, I had an idea of what to expect when Dallas told me that he wanted to take me to dinner one night, but needless to say, I kept it to myself…

 We borrowed a friend’s scooter to traverse the windy, narrow roads of the 2-mile-wide island to get to the restaurant on the beach. After a lovely dinner of tapas and wine, we strolled along the beach until Dallas stopped me to put his arms around me and whisper some consequential words in my ear: “Lauren, will you marry me?” Even though I knew it was coming, it was still a shock to hear it, and it took a couple of days to absorb what had happened. Discussing plans for when and where facilitated the realization that we were in fact getting married. Despite having less than four months to make arrangements, we decided to marry in February of 2009, just prior to going sailing. Now we can say that we are going on a two-year honeymoon!

Off to Dinner

 For those of you who were able to stomach this blog, there is more to come following the big