Things you never get tired of hearing, in Dayton or anywhere.

Over the weekend, I took my wife and kids to the cute little town of Dayton, located about 30 miles north east of Walla Walla, in the foothills of the Blue Mountains.  I went to Dayton myself a couple of months ago, and having been quite smitten with the town when I swung through, I have been itching for an opportunity to bring my wife and kids.

I'm not sure why I am quite so fascinated with this town.  No one thing makes it feel perfect, but rather it is a sum of many things, both practical and aesthetic.  For the practical, it is in a great location...game is plentiful at the foot of the Blue Mountains.  There are decent sized chunks of land available in the hills and the Palouse around town.  It's not really on the way to anywhere, so it's not like the Golden Hoards will pass by your direction if things get bad.

Aesthetically, it's a very cute town.  It is home of the oldest train depot in the State of Washington, as well as the oldest continually used Courthouse in Washington.

On the north side of Main Street, there is about a 3 block by 3 block Historic District with many BEAUTIFUL Victorian and Craftsman Style homes.  Granted...living in a 3900 SF Victorian is not the most inconspicuous way of life...but sometimes you have to let the wife win a theoretical argument.  Luckily, it would be about a 2 hour drive to work, so it is all theoretical right now...but when the time comes that we are ready to start seriously looking at vacation/get away land....the Dayton area is high on my list.

In addition to the cute train depot, court house and historic district, there is a nice little Main Street...about 5 or six shops...typical of what you would expect from a borderline tourist town....antiques, gifts, bakery, art gallery, and a fancy yarn shop that had my wife acting all giggly and little girlish. Also on Main Street is one of my new favorite places: Skye Book and Brew.  As I discussed after my previous visit, it's the kind of place I would love to have opened if I won the big Mega Millions last week...a used book store/brew pub.   Bringing my wife to see it was one of the prime reasons I was trying to get her to Dayton.

While we were enjoying our tasty lunch, we had one of those enjoyable moments that make being a parent ALL worthwhile.  A nice older lady was enjoying her cup of coffee and chicken pot pie at a table nearby.  After our kids got finished eating, we let them go examine the used kids books for sale.  When they left the table, the lady leaned over to us, and told us that we had some of the sweetest, most polite young ladies that she had ever seen in her life, and that they made sitting there the most enjoyable meal she had had in quite some time.  The owner/waitress who had been helping us also cut in, saying that is was much nicer to see well-behaved kids that say thank you than bratty ones that scream and bounce around the place.

My wife and I accepted the compliment as graciously as possible...and then it got a little dusty in the place, because I know I felt some tears forming in my eyes, and I thought I saw some in my wife's eyes.  I worry sometimes that I am not appreciative enough of the wonderful children that I have.  Moments like this help reinforce the amazing gift my wife and I have been given. 

It also proves to me that my reasons for taking this new job, one of the main ones being 'more time with the family', were the right reasons.  Now that there is an offer on the house, I am getting closer to the point where I can say it was the right decision.