Hot Date

Last Saturday night I had a hot date.

Christos and I went to a wedding last Saturday night, and it was our very first time to really just be us together AT ALL since baby Maria arrived...four months ago!!!!  And it was ABOUT TIME!!!! 

I was so excited that I even got my hair done the day before (so I actually had two outings sans baby in two days...very much a record around here.)  It was my first haircut since December (that is six full months and that is toooo long...no pun intended.)  I also got it colored...hoorah!  I ran out of the hair place before they dried or styled it as it had already been 3 hours since Maria had eaten and I was worried about baby's tummy and daddy's nerves.  I hightailed it home to find them happily playing on the sofa.  They literally both turned their smiling faces towards me when I walked in the door and looked at me like "Oh, hello there.  Good to see ya...Although we were kinda having so much fun we forgot all about ya!"

Anyway, I was really happy about having my hair done, a new dress, and getting myself all fixed up for a date with my husband and our first night out in four months.  My hair was an air-dried rat's nest disaster from the day before, and I was about to start getting ready when....the power was cut!!!!  Power cuts are part of the strikes that are happening all over the country at the moment.  There may have been tears on my part.  All my dreams of feeling good about my appearance were quickly fading, and I had about resigned myself to the wavy air-dried look when the power miraculously came back right at 7 for our 7:30 wedding (it was out for 2 hours exactly.)  I had just enough time to tame my mane and we were out the door.

None of it mattered AT ALL anyway, because it was CRAZY windy that night and everyone's hair looked like a rat's nest disaster.  See picture above...  In fact, I ended up with it in a rubber band for a lot of the night simply to avoid having it in my mouth.  Oh well, at least it looked good when I left the house.

Our date night actually started as a family, as we took Maria to the church.  

This may not be our best angle, but it is the angle that you get when a cutie pie teeny-bopper is your photographer.  Please note Maria's red eyes...it was a no nap kind of day.

Of all the Greek weddings I have attended, this is the only other one that I have been to in the same church where we married.

Greek weddings are so different than American ones.  Throughout the ceremony, everyone mills about inside and out...chatting and catching up.  Maria was not really too impressed with it all.  At first she enjoyed the wind taking her breath away, but even that got old fast.  She is not really a fan of strangers up in her face...nor am I.  I want to take her out, but how can I get people to respect personal space boundaries????  

We spent part of the ceremony inside of the church and part out.  As Christos was holding Maria in the church, she passed out and became about 40 pounds heavy, and it was burning up in there.  After she drooled all over his jacket, and he was overheating fast, we completed a pretty smooth baby-in-arms, middle-of-church jacket removal. 

This is another not-so-stellar picture...but it tells it all.  Christos carrying an exhausted rock of a baby...me carrying everything else.  All of us dressed the part but perhaps not looking up to par.  Maria is not the only exhausted party in this family.  All the men are standing outside the church talking and smoking.  And see those trees over my left shoulder??  It was blowing hard!

After the wedding, we ran home to prepare to hand off Maria to Kristal, who graciously offered to babysit so that we could have a night out.  We were planning to give Maria a bath anyway to stick to her bedtime routine, but we realized we absolutely had to when we saw the state of her.  She was filthy!  Her hair, her clothes, her skin...all covered in the dirt that the wind had been throwing all over the place.  I am sure we were all the same way, but, because of her light colored clothes and hair you could really see all her nastiness.  We cleaned her up, fed her, and away we went.

It was so strange to actually being going OUT with my man that it was almost surreal.  I was so happy I was almost giddy to know my baby was safe and in good hands and I had a whole night out ahead of me.

For some reason, I do not have a lot of pictures of the wedding...perhaps because I was too busy partaking in everything.  There was a lot of good food...of which I partook.  

And a lot of this

Of which we also partook.

Apparently, I need to partake in cleaning my camera lens.

The night was even more special because at midnight it became these guys' birthday!!!!

((If the trees above did not tell the story of how windy it was, perhaps Christos' hair can give you an accurate account.  Makis' was unharmed.))

The fact that it was their birthday at 12 made it even more gracious and special that Kristal offered to stay home with Maria.  

Due to Kristal's crazy work hours and my crazy mama hours, the birthday boys may have been a little shafted this year.  There was certainly not the same hooplah we have created other years.  In fact, on Sunday I called Kristal to apologize and say that Makis' present would be a little late this year.  She said she had been planning to call and say the same thing about Christos' gift.  Oh well...I think that they probably understand.

While we did not celebrate his birthday in grand fashion, we did celebrate the fact that Christos was born and how much we love and appreciate him.  We also celebrated the week before when he had his first Fathers' Day.  (Technically he was already a father last year on Fathers' Day...we just were not aware of it yet :)

Christos has been every bit as good a daddy as I knew he would be...and more. 

Maria absolutely adores him.  And the adoration is mutual.

 And he tolerates me and all my irritable exhaustion with endless patience and grace.  He works hard every day and then comes home and works even harder.  I am well aware that I do not say enough how much I love him and appreciate all that he does for our family!

And he is handsome.

I love my handsome husband and am so happy to celebrate another birthday with him.  And I am so happy to celebrate Fathers' Day with him and to celebrate the life that we created that made him a father.  And I am so happy to have a date with him occasionally.  And I look forward to many many more years of all of these!