Wherein All of Your Questions are Answered (the ones you have a right to ask, anyway)

1) Yes. Yes, we really did get married on April 1. There are pictures here, at Alec Hilliard Photography. I highly recommend him, by the way, for all of your pictorial needs.

The April 1 idea was James', and it was brilliant. I was impressed by his restraint in lack of squirt flower abuse, given the ample opportunities presented throughout the day. I gave him the beer case hat for Valentine's, as a schmaltzy "welcome to Texas" gift. He does not actually drink Lone Star beer. (It's important to me that you respect him.)

Vince at the Cathedral of Junk is an amazing human being. You should go see his art, and donate money to him because he won't charge you, or even give you an idea of what's "fair" to help support him.

If you're still having trouble wrapping your mind around this, here's the video:



Somehow, I managed to snag the most incredible man ever, right?

2) Yes! I am Mrs. James Ashley. I am also, however, Ms. Laura Hattaway. For now. (If that doesn't make sense to you, you can research the historical meaning of "Mrs." and then feel like a dunderhead for calling women "Mrs." in conjunction with their first names, which is totally inappropriate.)

James and I are going on a trip to Haiti in June, to meet the people, to build a couple of houses, to get to know the culture better, and to partner with Help One Now as we learn about their extensive work there. Since we need passports for this trip, there will be no name changes until late June.

When we do change our names (and, yes, I said "we"), we are going to combine the last names with which we were born and both change our surnames to Gatannah.

3) AM. That's when I got out of bed. Now it's 4:26 AM, and my body is begging me to try to get a couple more hours' of sleep. To be continued...