Countdown to disaster: T minus 9 days

This post is part of a series that reflects on what we were doing, what I was thinking and feeling, and what this time last year was like.

It's Saturday, December 10, 2011
Tonight is one of two night a year that Rowan's preschool offers a "Date Night" for the parents. For $10, they keep the kids for about five hours, feed them dinner, and show a movie. Aimee and I jump at the chance for such cheap and reliable childcare.

My Facebook post from that night

After dropping Rowan off, we drive up to downtown Seattle and get dinner at Rock Bottom Brewery. It's a busy holiday Saturday night, and we have to wait for a table, but we're blissfully happy to be out on the town on a Saturday night, just the two of us, and not spending a fortune for a sitter. Despite the winter chill, it is otherwise a pretty nice evening.

After dinner we walk down 5th Avenue, and stop in a couple of stores for some Christmas shopping. We end up at a shopping center called the Westlake Center, which on its third floor has a balcony that overlooks a plaza, which is decked out for Christmas. There's a beautiful tree, tons of holiday lights, and a massive star lit up store an a nearby store. We each take the other's picture - I with my phone and Aimee with her camera. Sadly, we fail to get one together. I always hated getting my picture taken, and she gave me a bad time about getting photos together. I guess now I do wish I'd been more cooperative about that.

The conversation is both sweet and excited, because tomorrow we'll be leaving for eight days in the Florida Keys. We can't wait for the sunshine and warmth.

We get some more shopping done, including Adele's CD "21" for Aimee, and Aimee picking out a present that she plans to have Rowan give me. I would end up forgetting all about it until I stumbled across it a couple of weeks after Christmas had passed. That would end up being a very sad moment.

We wrapped up our date and headed back to pick Rowan up. Although we were actually a few minutes ahead of schedule, I was still characteristically impatient with slow drivers on the freeway. Aimee remarked that I was the only person she knew that could be mad because I was only going to be a little early instead of a lot early.

December 10, 2011 was a really good day.