Overnight Date

Ryan and I really wanted to do something fun for our ten year anniversary. Since we have no money and no close family to watch our kids for a week, we knew there would be no cruise, or even the chance to backpack in the mountains for a week. We decided that if we could have just one night it would be perfect. 

Asking a friend to watch your kids overnight is not an easy favor to request. I have plenty of friends here in town. Many of them I could ask for a couple of hours here and there, but there was only one that I could ask for a full twenty-four - The beautiful Brooke Thomas. Brooke and I hit if off right away when we met. But, in the last two years we have become pretty tight. Our husbands are also good friends, so we get together often. There is never a dull moment with Brooke around.

She immediately said yes to my request and she was truly excited. We dropped the kids off at 4:00pm and did our best to forget all about them.

Ryan and I had so much fun. We went to dinner at Five Guys Burgers and Fries; easily the best burger I have ever had in my life. Then we went to Cup of Yo, a new frozen yogurt place (now a family favorite). We meandered our way over to the mall and saw the Bodies exhibit. It was so fun not to be hurried. What takes most people 45min we did in almost two hours. We had no crowd pushing us along or kids telling us to hurry. It was awesome! When we were finally done looking at corpses we went to the bookstore, got some hot chocolate, and blissfully wasted an hour looking at books. When it was time to go we almost went to a very late movie (just because we could), but decided to go home and watch one instead. We stayed up until 2:30am, knowing we could sleep in for as long as we wanted.

The next morning we were up (earlier than we had hoped) and decided to go on a run together. We never get to run together. Ryan took me on one of his 3 mile offroad trails. It was so much fun and running with him made me push myself harder.

Before we knew it, it was time to pick up the kids. We were rested, relaxed, recharged and ready to retrieve. The kids had so much fun. Brooke has two boys, so she had so much fun playing girly stuff. McKenna couldn't wait to show me her cute press-on nails and curly hair. Alana was also all done up with painted fingers, toes and cute pig tails. Evan got to wear matching wife-beaters with Brooke's son Garth Lee. They had McDonald's for dinner, watched/played some t-ball, and stayed up as late as they wanted. The night couldn't have been better for them.

Brooke and Garth are the best! Thank you so much for the pictures and the date! It meant the world to us...even if you did put my son in a wife-beater. That was a fun name to explain. :)