Surprise Date! (and thoughts on marriage)

Yesterday at 4:30,  Lester called and asked me if I wanted to go out on a date.
Sure, I said. When?
Now, he said.

Huh?!

Turns out my honey had already made arrangements with Michelle to stay a little late, and he was on his way to my office to pick me up. Talk about surprised! I love how Lester still courts me. It's very sweet!

We went to a wine bar in Harbor East, had appetizers, drinks and salted pretzel ice cream (surprisingly yummy!) and then walked around the neighborhood, going in and out of stores looking at beautiful merchandise we can't afford, holding hands and enjoying the beautiful weather.

Then we ended up at a restaurant at the new Four Seasons hotel called Wit and Wisdom, which I think is a totally cool name for a restaurant. We sat in the bar area, in a little nook facing the water, and ate lobster corn dogs and just talked.

Lobster corn dogs!

It was unbelievably lovely.

We were home by 8:30 p.m. and even though I really, really missed getting to say goodnight to my littlest sweeties, I was so happy to get to spend a little adult time out and about with my original sweetie.

As parents, you sacrifice a lot to raise children. Some people might grumble about it, but we (mostly) do it happily (mostly). We wanted these children. We prayed for them. So if it means our evenings and weekends consist of Legos, reading, meals, bath and bedtime (plus some screaming, crying and whining) every single night for months and months on end, then so be it. No, we're not living la vida loca like celebrity housewives up in here, but we are living la vida feliz. And we know how blessed we are to be able to do it.

But that doesn't mean that we don't get to have time to ourselves. And in fact, keeping our marriage strong is just as important to the health and happiness of our children as anything else we do. Maybe even more so.

Lester and I are firm believers that we didn't become a family when we had the kids. We already were a family, and a darn good one, before they came. The kids added to our family, and boy are we lucky we got the awesome additions we did. But when those babies grow up and move on and get families of their own, it'll be me and Lester left behind, just the two of us.

And when that day comes, if we keep pouring into our marriage, hopefully we'll be just as in love as we were in 2007 when we said "We do."



Occasional evenings like last night help make sure that we still do.