date night

Funny thing happens when you get married. You tend to go out less. Not because you're less in love, or because you don't want to make the effort anymore, but mainly because instead of having to make plans to spend some quality time together, you're always around each other, thus lowering the necessity and expectation to "go out" but not eliminating it.

When we were first married Shelli and I actually went out pretty regularly, despite this fact.

When you have kids - this is when things really change. Its at this point you transition from going out less, to desperately needing a night out. Now all the time you have is shared with a little one and in order to exit your home to go anywhere it requires a massive procession of tasks lists and check-marks:

"Hey, Honey, did you get the sippy-cup?"

"Don't forget the wipes!"

"Did you remember the toys?" (I'll come back to this one.)

"Did you grab his food?"

And so on. The list can be so long and exhaustive that you are guaranteed two things: you will be late and you will forget something.

So anytime someone comes along and says "Hey, if you guys want a night out just let us know." You both look at each other with that inquisitive "You think they're serious?" perplexity on your face. This is also why when anyone calls back moments later and says "How about next Saturday?" and you have it free, you gasp with excitement and dance around your living room like you're in a Steve Carrell comedy, all the while trying not to let on to the person on the other end of the phone.

So, thank you David and Liz for your overwhelming generosity and persistence, it was an enormous blessing and overwhelmingly needed.

Last Saturday, David and Liz watched Noah for us so we could have a little date night. Which when you haven't been out together in a while can kind of fall apart, but more on that later.

After packing up the Noah and racing through the checklist, making sure to check everything and be certain we forgot nothing, we raced off to drop Noah off at David and Liz's. We of course were running drastically late, not guarantee number one. As we traveled down Bangerter Highway and turned left to head to our destination we both came to a startling realization: yes, we forgot the toys (note guarantee number two). Oh well, too late now. Fortunately, David and Liz had plenty of plastic kitchen utensils, so everything was fine.

After we dropped off Noah, we went out for a nice dinner and a to take in a movie. We first headed over to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner (all to be covered by gift certificates) but instead realize that in our delay we had overrun our time and wouldn't be able to make it there in time, nor back to the movie. So, we settled on a subpar salad bar from Ruby Tuesday in Jordan Landing where we would be seeing our movie. That is, until we realized that our movie gift certificates wouldn't apply there, so we adapted once again and hurried over to the District to catch a movie. Minus some upset stomachs and poor driving, which provided for some funny dialogue, everything worked out nicely. We saw the Blindside, which we both thoroughly enjoyed, and headed on over to pick up the Little Man, before we called it a night.

While nothing went as planned, and the overall night would statistically be considered a failure based on things that went the way they were suppose to, we had a great time and it was so nice to be able to spend some time together just the two of us. Sometimes we can get so caught up in our lives that we forget to let the ones we love the most, know how much we love them, by just spending time with them and honestly, there is probably nothing more important that we will ever do with our time.

Thanks David and Liz, we needed that.