Anniversary

Eric and I finally got around to celebrating our anniversary. We had plans for one Saturday evening, but the day ended up going a lot differently than we had planned.

Eric was working on replacing the brakes in our Nissan Sentra at a friend's house. He thought it would take a few hours, like the last time he'd done it, and that he'd even make it to the park to catch the end of a birthday party I'd taken the girls to. When I got a call from him during lunch saying they had to drive to an auto parts store to borrow a tool, it should have been my first sign that the day wasn't going to go well. The tool they borrowed broke, so he had to go back and get a replacement. He ended up being gone from 9:00 am to 6:30 pm, and the brakes still weren't replaced when he came home. We were supposed to go out to dinner and to a movie, leaving at 5:00. Obviously that didn't happen. I was, of course, in tears before he even came home. We tried to salvage the evening by getting blizzards at Dairy Queen, but when your kids are climbing over the booths, screaming and throwing their spoons on the floor, the loss of a quiet evening out stings even more!

We were so happy our friends who were going to watch the kids were so accommodating--they offered to watch them the next weekend instead, so we could still do what we had planned to do the first time around. We went to dinner at "Bravo" and had a great meal, plus a free dessert for our anniversary (warm chocolate cake with vanilla bean ice cream on top), and then went to see "Eclipse." It's too bad we didn't love the movie. We were actually glad we hadn't spent the extra money to see it right when it first came out. But we had an entire evening to ourselves. And to top it off, the kids both fell asleep on the way home. We couldn't have asked for a better night.

P.S. The brakes did eventually get fixed. We took the car to a different mechanic, one that a friend had recommended. It ended up costing over $100 less than our first estimate, which was great, but a little more frustrating that Eric had wasted a day already trying to save that money in the first place. And the guy who fixed the car said the brakes still had 30% wear left.... At least we got to go out to lunch the day it was worked on. Mierae was at school, but Jolie came along and enjoyed lunch at Panera with us. Another anniversary deal--one meal was free! :)