7 Years: She's Tougher Than We Thought

Allison and I recently celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary, thus proving all my gambling friends wrong...she DIDN'T leave me before 7 full years! IN YOUR FACE!! We're perfectly balanced time-wise: 3 1/2 years without kids, 3 1/2 years with kids. Since that second half is a lot harder than the first, we decided to do a "no-kids" extended date to celebrate.

My sister kept Emma & B last Thursday night until Friday afternoon, giving Allison and I roughly 18 full hours to ourselves. Sadly, we had to sleep, so that cut it down to about 10 hours of awake time to hang out. We went to dinner Thursday night at Theo's in Fayetteville. We had heard good reviews of it and wanted to try it out. Apparently, our friends are idiots. We weren't overly impressed with the food, but were extremely fond of the wine and dessert! Next time, we'll go for dessert and wine only. The atmosphere was OK, except that in the dining area, you're pretty much assured the beautiful scenery of the kitchen. Not sure if that's the way "fancy" places are nowadays, but I'd prefer not to see the mustached dude staring at my mediocre plate of food before he sends it out to me. Afterwards, we went to the house and watched Ocean's 12 and enjoyed having the house to ourselves.

Friday morning, we got up and went hiking at Devil's Den. It's been YEARS since either of us had been there. We took Belle (the dog) with us to make up for the 3 1/2 years of ignoring her. She loved it! Took a lot of pictures down by the dam and let Belle wade through the stream. Then we headed back to pick up the kids. Both of them did really well for my sister, which was a huge relief for both Allison and me.

It's been an amazing 7 years! Allison is easily the best part of my life and I look forward to a lifetime of anniversaries with her.

FYI: 7 years is the same thing as being with the same person from 6th grade until graduating high school. Crazy!!