When you pick your mate

Someday my kids will fall in love. They might fall in love a million times, or maybe once, or maybe not at all! I hope they never feel pressure to get married if they'd prefer to stay single..nothing wrong with that. But I hope that they choose someone that they can have fun doing anything with. You know, like a best friend.
I can honestly say that I am lucky enough to be married to that person. Sure, sometimes we drive each other nuts. But honestly, almost 5 years into marriage, I can say that he's my first pick for doing almost anything with. See, someday we aren't going to have the kids around. Someday we might be too old to be as active as we are (actually, we aren't that active, ever). Someday it will be just the 2 of us. And this is when some people get bored with each other, or feel like they don't know each other. That's why I feel like it's even more important now, in these baby years, to make sure we still get priority time with just the two of us. And that it's not forced, but it's looked forward to. Yes, I love my girlfriend time. I NEED my girlfriend time, and I get it. But I NEED my one-on-one CJ time. And we are blessed to have two kids that are in bed by about 730pm every night, and CJ and I get the rest of the night to be with each other, alone. But dates away from the house and routine are good too.
This last weekend, I realized once again how much I love being married to my husband. And not because he makes millions, or says the right thing all the time, or looks like Channing Tatum with his shirt off, or even listens very well (he's getting better). No, it's because he is my best friend. And in a wierd way, sometimes I forget I'm married to him and that we have babies together etc because we just have that much fun together.
We had the opportunity this last weekend to have an overnight date night, thanks to my brother and Brittany. We aren't 'planners'. In fact, we had known about this for a few weeks, and still had no plans. We tossed around going to the casinos, getting a hotel room at the plaza, going skiing in Weston to name a few. Then it came time to leave, and we went to Houlihans to get some food. Right here in Lees Summit. Then we stopped at store and I bought some jeans. Then he wanted to buy a hat so we headed to ever classy, Independence Mall. As we were walking into the mall, CJ said 'hey, let's run into Applebees and get a drink, because we can!''. Yes, we don't have the opportunity to just stop in for a drink because we usually have kids with us. Well, I never pictured the highlight of our weekend away would be at a mall Applebees. In fact, I can't think of a worse thing on paper haha. But man, 3 hours later, we had the mgr. ask us to quiet down! We were really having that much fun. At one point, a man came over to us and thought we were on a first date. He said he's never seen a date look like they were having that much fun. It made me proud to say that we were married for 5 years and we still have that much fun. I hope we can say that when we are married 50 years!
So to sum up my advice to my kids about picking a mate, let me tell you this. I dated guys longer than I dated your dad, I dated guys that were 'nicer' at the time, I dated guys that were better looking, and seemed like they could provide a decent life, guys that loved me, guys that my family loved...but if all those things line up, but you can't picture yourself laughing and having fun with them doing any basic, daily or mundane activity, then you are going to be BORED! And your daddy is the one for me and I feel blessed everyday to have him as my spouse. Picture yourself spending time with a person doing life, and if it doesn't seem like they will make your life more fun, re-think. Hopefully this advice doesn't get me son-in-law that is homeless, jobless, is 300lbs and looks like a woman, but hey, he's funny! :)