Yes, Hubby came home with a boat on Monday night. I truly wasn't expecting it (knew he'd gone "to see a man about a boat"), but when I called him to see where he was and he said "We're hooking it up and I'm bringing it home" the kids were ecstatic. FIL came over and ended up helping him navigate backing the boat and trailer into the driveway (thank God, I would have been disastrous at that). FIL looked really pleased with Hubby and with the boat -- haven't seen that in a long time.
The Boy and I decided to surprise him by cleaning as much of the boat as we could on Tues., and we had a good time doing that. I spent an hour using the shopvac on the interior "cuddy cabin" (read: slightly larger than a crawl space, perfect for the kids or for stowing a folded up dead body). After finishing the vacuum job, it was evident that underneath all of the filth, which included an ancient mouse nest, a lot of pine needles, tree leaves and dirt, we actually had blue carpet. I was also slightly deaf after running the shop vac that long.
The Boy did all of the windows and took to scrubbing dirty spots while he clambered all over the boat.
I took a scrubby sponge and Cascade liquid dishwasher detergent to the seat cushions. Amazing -- I really thought we were going to have to replace the cushions because they were so filthy and looked so stained, but the Cascade took out virtually every bit, including some stains that looked like rust.
Hubby had apparently been planning on spending a day cleaning the boat, but when he got home on Tues he was really happy that wasn't necessary any more -- he took it right down to the shore and got a couple guys to help him put it in the water.
The boat is 21 1/2 feet long with one 175 hp Yamaha motor, which seems to run just fine. He took it out with U.J. yesterday evening from the harbor, and swung around up into the river. We met them at the docks of the new condos, and we all rode back to the harbor. The kids loved it! The town marine permit troll at town hall was very much of the opinion that we wouldn't be able to get any kind of docking space whatsoever, and Hubby hasn't seen the dockmaster yet... hopefully he'll get something manageable. He's got it in a friend's spot at the moment.
