Date Night

I have to say I consider myself truly blessed. You see, I am absolutely crazy about my husband. We were figuring it out earlier tonight and I have been with this wonderful man for more than half of my life. It will be over half of his life in a few more months because he's slightly older than I am. (He'll be 39 a week from Monday and I have another 5 1/2 months before I hit that final stop before the great milestone of the big 4-0, but I digress.) Bottom line, we've been together for a long time. If we were in Hollywood it would be like our diamond anniversary almost!

Tonight was our scheduled "date night." We get one guaranteed date night per month. My parents take each one of our kids on a Thursday night rotation to spend time with them individually and the 4th week of that cycle they take the whole bunch and we get an evening off. A lot of times it's just a couple hours on a Thursday evening, but often my parents will take them on a Friday or Saturday so we can have more time. Last night after we all went to the (devestating) Angel game my dad called when we got home and surprised us with an offer to come and get them right away. So our "date night" was wonderfully extended.

We got to sleep in this morning, which is a rare treat. We lounged and relaxed till it was time to meet my dad and the kids at Ethan's extremely brief soccer game. (It got called after the first quarter because of rain, it wasn't actually raining, but it got called anyway.) So my dad took back off with the kids and Neal and I headed off for more time alone.

We went and had a really nice dinner at PF Changs. There's a new one at the Anaheim Gardenwalk. It was nice to be able to go to one of our faves and not have it be a long trek down the freeway. We had the best service I think I might have ever had. If you check out this new restaurant, ask for Erin, she took such good care of us. It was nice to lounge and have grown-up conversation. It made me realize how lucky I am to truly like the man I'm married to. I know that sounds strange, but it's true. I see so many married couples who though they may love each other, they tolerate spending time together. I think that's sad. I really like Neal, he truly is my best friend.

Afterwards we walked around the new shopping center. There were a lot of "opening soon" shops. There's a theater, we thought about going to a movie but couldn't really agree on what to see. We just walked around and hung out. Neal pulled me a round a quiet corner and gave me a big kiss, and you know what? He still makes my heart go pitter-patter.

It was just such a pleasant quiet day. We ended up coming back to the house and hanging out. He's playing worship tomorrow and needed to practice. I needed to do laundry for him and the kids. It was nice though, so peaceful and quiet. We stretched out the evening as long as we could. I know it's highly boring, but I love that we are that happy to just be alone together.

When we finally went and got the kids we heard the discipline reports and each child had something to tell us or whine about (or both). By the time we got in the car to head home they were bickering and had started the "he did this, she did that" lines. Whining increased, I think we had a few drama tears. (You know, the completely fake kind.) Neal reached over and grabbed my hand, we looked at each other and laughed. I started to sing my version of that old Helen Reddy song... "You and me against the kids..."

At one point during the evening while Neal was outside practicing and I was alone in the house, the thought did occur to me how boring life would be without the kids, peaceful, but boring. But I can't imagine sharing the excitement and challenge of parenting our three crazy, rambunctious, often obnoxious kids without my best friend by my side. I love my husband, and I am so thankful we have time and opportunity to foster our friendship. It makes it a lot easier to get the work of parenting done together.