Bowl Me Over !

Eric and I went on a date tonight. A real date ! We just happened to be with about 15 other couples that we knew. But it was still a date !

We spent our evening at the local bowling alley in a social event that Eric had planned with the other members of the volunteer fire department. It was organized in an attempt to include spouses, have some fun and blow off some steam during the winter months. Since I'm friends with mostly every wife of the firefighters and know the majority of the guys too, Eric and I had a great time. In fact, just about everyone commented on how much fun they had and that we should plan these types of events more often. I'm impressed that some of my social planning skills have rubbed off on Eric ! It's only taken 10 years !

Eric and I mixed and matched bowling teams with 3 other couples that we're friends with. When they turned on the black light and the smoke machine, all of us instantly regressed into giddy teenagers as everyone began to glow. The biggest difference is that we were teenagers that were able to bring our own beverage of choice. You heard me - our bowling alley doesn't have a liquor license so it's BYOB. (Advantage of a small town. ) Snacks, refreshments, and glow-bowling ... how could you go wrong? Another great aspect about tonight was that we only had the bowling alley reserved until 11:00, so everyone did their part in cleaning up and we vacated by 11:30. Not one person left early and others weren't put out by doing all of the clean up efforts. We all made it safely to our homes at a decent hour. Truthfully, the volunteer firefighters in our town make a terrific team wherever they may be.

And about Miss Elaina ... we asked our neighbor, Katie, to babysit once again. She's always more than willing and it's been some time since she's been over. Elaina was happy to see her once again and welcomed her with a hug. I felt a little bit bad that Elaina's bedtime was right around the corner, so basically, we were asking Katie to come over, put our kid to bed and sit around to be bored. ( I guess that's what a teenage babysitter expects.) When we arrived home, Katie said that Elaina was good up until she had a stinky diaper. She refused to have her diaper changed and pitched a fit. Katie called her mom, (remember, they live in the house behind us) and asked for her to come down to help out with calming Elaina down and the whole diaper change. That made me laugh ! Talk about good neighbors and good friends... another advantage of small town living !