Except for that wind thing...

Early on in our marriage, my wife and I made a commitment to 'going out'.  We didn't want to lose each other in jobs and raising kids.  To be un-elegant about it, I felt that I didn't get married to have kids...I got married because I couldn't bare the thought of not spending the rest of my life.  Our kids(whom I love and am ever amazed by) are a by product of that...and at some point, sooner than I think, it will be back to being just my wife and I. 

We didn't want to wake up that morning and find out that we had become strangers to each other, and that the kids were the only reason we had stayed together. 

It wasn't always easy.  Baby sitters aren't always cheap, and for a while living in Belfair, finding 'something to do' meant driving 30-40 minutes...and that was after driving 30-40 minutes to pick up, and then drop off, the baby-sitter(getting baby-sitters old enough to drive themselves is one of the best pieces of advise I can offer new couples...SOOOO much easier).  Sometimes instead of the monthly dates we hoped for, it would stretch 3-5 months before one of us said 'We need to get a sitter this weekend'.

All of this is just set-up to brag about how nice it is to now live in wine country, with a daughter who is mature enough to be left home alone with her sister for a time.  We try not to abuse her too much, and we do pay her when we leave her with her younger sister...but it's nice.  It means instead of dates every 4-8 weeks where I am falling asleep at 11pm, we can go out every 2-3 weeks for shorter/earlier dates.

Like yesterday.  Now that summer is here, several of the local wineries are having bands in to play on their outdoor patios....and the nice thing, is that most of the time, these bands start at 7ish, instead of 9-10ish, meaning we can split a bottle of wine, and still make it home before we are pushing my daughter past our comfort point.  Sweet deal.

Thomas O'Neil Cellars is one such place, having the advantage of being two minutes from our house(three if we hit the light), and last night my wife and I went to see a band called Badlands.  Pretty good band...we will definitely keep an eye out for them again.  The two ladies that handled most of the singing did a lot of Heart, Fleetwood Mac, and Pat Benatar.   It was mostly 'classic' rock, but they did work in some Melissa Etheridge, Pink, and 'Hey Jealousy' by the Gin Blossoms(which I don't think of as 'classic, but holy crap, it's been 25 years since it was released on their first CD).

They deserved better than what they got, which was the only real negative for the night.  A front was passing through, and while day-time highs were a pleasant 85ish, winds in the evening kicked up to a fairly steady 22-28mph.  This not how I normally style my hair.

 

 

I felt worse for my wife.  It takes me 4.7 seconds to brush my hair before leave the house.  She spent over 20 minutes on her hair, and after being outside for 5, she looked like she was in a 80's rock video, and she was digging her purse for bobby-pins to keep it out of her wine.  The wind was fairly refreshing while the sun was up, but when it ducked behind the hills there was a 'in this really the end of June?' chill to it(yes, in two weeks or less I will be sniveling about the 95+ degree weather). 

 

I was almost relieved when we had to leave at our pre-arranged time to make it home to our daughters.  It was certainly a convenient excuse to warm up.