Date Night!

Enjoying a beer sample of scotch ale. Yummy!

My attempt to take a picture of my vintage dress and Steve Madden shoes in the ladies' room

This Saturday, Scott and I had a date night (woot!). And it went like this: we dropped Ev off at my Mom and Dad's house and went back home to doll up. Scott smooched me while I was getting ready, and I knocked over a red Christmas candle I had burning and spilled red wax all over the carpet (again, we are about to move and are hoping to get our deposit back!). Scott was like "it is what it is and let's not let it ruin our night". But I was upset. We finished getting ready and found some neat lo-fi underground show thing we wanted to go to. But then we couldn't find the place. Fail. So we made a Plan B. We drove to this neat little bar that usually has live jazz. And upon walking in, we were told the kitchen had runout of food and the band had canceled, and they were closing. Fail. So we made a Plan C and wound up at Grinders, our old stomping grounds from when we lived on 18th Street in our make-shift gallery/loft. Which I should totally write a post about. More on that later. But because of that, we know most of the staff and regular patrons there, and you know what? It wound up being a lovely time.

We got to sample some great beers and we found ourselves joking and laughing just like old times in the company of lots of fellow artists, musicians, architects, and people best classified as "other". We shared a slice of freshly tossed pizza, and chatted the night away until it was time to go get the girl.

A perfect night that went nothing like we planned!

First Friday

Wow, this weekend was truly epic ;) I had a date with my husband Friday (hubba hubba), a "ladies night" Saturday (at the KC Roller Warriors derby bout), and enjoyed a blissful Sunday with the girl in the sunshine.

Friday night: Scott and I snagged a date night so we could hit up the local art scene in the Crossroads art district....a night where all the local galleries open their doors (and sometimes their bottles of pino) to welcome the masses and debut new art from local and national artists. It's basically awesome--the most "city" feel Kansas City really gets. When the weather is warm, there are throngs of people (rich middle agers, curious onlookers, freaks, geeks, trust fund art students, parents, children, homeless people) who make it out for this monthly ritual.

We saw some awesome performance art involving ariel fabric ladies, space age costumes, and electric violins. We saw modern and retro designed cardboard chairs, a drum circle complete with hula hoopers, a giant telescope, lots of upbeat gay guys, a new mom wearing 6 inch heels and carrying a baby that was almost as big as her. We bought a strawberry lemonade cupcake off a bakery truck and drank some Boulevards. We sat in the car not wanting to leave the scene but knowing we needed to go collect our girl. We listened to the new Radiohead cd and kissed.

Then we tried to start the car and realized we'd somehow killed the battery, and that we no longer had jumper cables. Rut ro. So we did what any reasonable adults would do--we called my mom ;) But there was no need; we ended up finding two kind strangers willing to give us a jump, and we were on our way.

Date night is back! Those 2 and a half hours made us feel so free and happy and lovey-dovey. It was truly lovely.

The Hangover (otherwise known as Mommy and Daddy are now cheap dates)

While my husband HAS been compared many times to Zach Galafianakis (when Scott grows his beard out), I'm not actually referring to the hit comedy.

Rather, I am referring to the way my head feels today. You see, my husband, Scott, turned FORTY last night. That's right, 40. He is officially super old. I on the other hand am 28 so I'll be young forever (haha).

In order to celebrate this momentous occasion without drawing undue attention (per his request), we got a sitter for the evening (thanks Beth and Big B!) and went to a fancy dinner out, which turned into a fancy dinner out during which a bottle of lovely red wine was consumed, and then an "after party" of sorts at a few local bars we love. Apparently, at 28 I am too dang old to stay up past 11 and drink more than 1 or 2 drinks because last night after returning home I felt like crap on wheels, and today I had a monster hangover. I kept going from feeling OK to feeling nauseous to hungry to dizzy to headachy to normal again. No thank you.

Here's the place we went went for dinner:

Skies in Kansas City. It's a bit on the cheesy side, but Scott had never been and really wanted to go, primarily for the awesome view.

 It's 40 stories up and revolves slowly while you eat so you get to see the whole city and watch the sunset. We ate a shrimp cocktail appetizer, filet mignons, a bottle of petite syrah, and a delicious piece of key lime cheesecake to share for dessert. It was awesome. I wore a really cute black dress that is now scandalously short due to a washing/drying incident (Scott--some things are not to be thrown in with everything else in the wash!). But Scott decided that he thought it looked hot in a 60's airline hostess kind of way. I wore it with black opaque tights and cute black heels, and wore my hair up in a mini bee-hive. Scott LOVED it, which was really all that mattered to me seeing as how it was his birthday and all.

After dinner, we stopped at The Cashew, a place we have been known to stumble into in the past. Every time we go, we use their photo booth and get snapshots of our night. I'll try to see if I can capture those and post them--they're pretty funny. We had one drink, then left to hit up another spot close by called the Czar Bar, where they were having some kind of glow in the dark burlesque bingo game. We felt like we were in Japan or something, which was pretty awesome. The girls had pink and green wigs on, fishnets, and balloons covering their bodies, and would hold up giant glow in the dark cards displaying the Bingo numbers as they were called. Lastly, we ended the night at our old stomping grounds--Grinders. Although, by this time I just wanted Sprite. We spent the last 45 minutes or so mutually gushing about Everleigh the way teenage girls squeal over some cute boy at a slumber party. What can I say? We're smitten.

After getting the signal from birthday boy that he had just had one of the best birthdays ever, we agreed it was time to get home and see our girl.

Next time, I'll probably switch to Sprite after 1 or 2 glasses of wine. But hey, your husband only turns 40 once, right? Love you Scotti! Thanks for being such an amazing, loving husband and father. You totally rock my socks, even if you ARE old.