Goodbye Boat.

Memorial Day 2011

Tim and I decided the time had finally come to sell our boat.

It became obvious us to us last year that, as much as we LOVE having a boat, it just isn’t practical at this time in our lives.  He’s so tired by the time he gets home from work that he doesn’t want to go out again, and it’s hard with little ones.  Plus there’s the added cost of maintaining the boat and monthly payments.  So, after talking it through last year we decided we should try and sell it.

But last summer was a bit crazy–having a baby and all— so the months clicked by and we never really took any steps to make it happen. And lets face it, no one wants to buy a boat in the winter…

So, that brought us to this year.  We had talked to a couple friends about the boat last year and no one seemed interested.  We still had a good chunk left on the loan.  We didn’t have any desire to make any profit on the boat–but we also couldn’t take a loss.  So, we were shocked when a friend at church approached us last month and asked if we were still interested in selling our boat.  Tim quickly worked on “spring cleaning” the boat and scrubbing it up from being stored over the winter.  Then the night after Chloe got chicken pox he came home from work early to take it out with the guy to show him everything and see what he thought (we really wanted to be honest and upfront with him about everything so there weren’t any surprises).  We weren’t sure he would still be interested in it after seeing it in person.  It’s not a NEW boat, after all… so we didn’t know what his expectations were.

MUCH to my surprise, he wrote a check and took the boat home that night.

I admit I’m a bit sad about it.  We had a lot of fun with family and friends on that boat.  Chloe is finally at the age where she wanted to go on the boat (and wasn’t terrified of it anymore 😉 )  But most of all, it was hard to let go of the idea of Tim being able to make memories with our kids on a boat.

But we have to remind ourselves that we’re being smart.  Like I said at the beginning of this, it’s just not a good time in our lives to have a boat.  Things will eventually change.  The kids will grow up a little, hopefully Tim’s work days will lighten, someday I won’t have to teach every weeknight… and then we’ll see.

So, it’s not “no boat forever.”  It’s just “no boat for now.”

🙂