Two adult evenings in a row...what a concept!

Last night we spent a lovely ADULT evening at a surprise birthday party. The Surprisee (who was actually not surprised) is one our long time real estate agents and friend's and it was his 60th birthday. He is a very interesting and uber talented man. He recreated himself for his second career in real estate and he along with his lovely wife became the top real estate team in our office and one of the tops in our region. Before that, he was a very successful musician who backed many world famous bands with his amazing guitar and piano skills. His resume is like a who's who in Rock and Roll. Last evening was especially amazing as even though I have known him for a very long time, I had never been privileged enough to see his talent first hand. All I could say all night, when my mouth was not hanging open in amazement was, "Oh my goodness, Alain...you are sooooo talented!!" I think I sounded like a star struck school girl and that was really how I felt. At one point, while he was playing the piano, his sister who had flown in from Paris and is a world famous ballerina, danced to his music. Wow, it was just too much! They definitely had a natural predisposition to these artistic talents as their father was a musician and orchestra conductor and mother was also a ballerina. They also hired an Egyptian belly dancer to perform and that was so much fun to watch. Of course she pulled a few of us up, one by one to TRY to belly dance with her and one of those lucky people was yours truly as well as Marc. I think I still have too much belly to be a belly dancer and Marc does not have enough....HA!! it was fun trying though.

The food and drink were wonderful and we even got the lovely parting gift of original music from Alain...we listened to it all the way home and are still buzzing off of the evening today.

Thursday evening was also a childless evening as some good friend's of ours were in town from Chicago and they invited us to their new condo that they purchased by the ocean (from Moi ;) for some cocktails etc. and then we went to have a casual dinner with them and some other friend's at a restaurant that sits by the water....lovely.

One thing that I know for sure is that the evenings that Marc and I share together ALONE are very precious to me since we have so few of them. Our days and evenings are filled with the constant and energetic din of two three year old's. It is non stop and can be quite polarizing to the two of us. I was actually speaking to Alain's (birthday boy's) wife about their marriage as they are in a long term marriage and are still so mesmerized by each other and and totally devoted. They have always had an aura about them and I commented on the fact that it is so rare to see such a connection in a long term relationship such as theirs. She replied to me that she did not want to sound offensive to me but that she felt that their relationship was this outwardly loving due to the fact they never had children together (he has one adult child from his first marriage) and that children seem to change the way couples interact with each other. I was certainly not offended and would say that I agree with her. Marc and I had several years before the DD came along and I know that our relationship has changed because of their presence in their lives. I am not saying that our love is not intact and as devoted as ever. What I am saying is that we do not have much alone time and when we do, we are so tired from the children, jobs, household, and other responsibilities that we spend way to many evenings vegging in front of the boob tube and computer. Quite honestly, most days we cannot get a word in edgewise. It is when we take time to have moments such as the ones that we had the last couple of nights that we re energize that very important side of our marriage.

As I know first hand, children grow up to have lives all of their own, so we better treasure the moments that we do have with our partners along the way or we risk losing the very entity that formed the family in the first place.