And Dance By The Light Of The Moon

Sometime the best days we have in life are completely unplanned. A long week and a nerve wracking work day was causing me to sprout gray hair like the time lapse photography you seen on national geographic. Every inch of me was on edge and just needing a Thelma and Louise moment, but being a mom and having responsibilities we would have to water that down a bit, ok maybe quite a bit. Angela and I already had said we were doing something together that evening so I dialed her up and said, what about a massage? On the other end of the line all I heard was "YEEEEESSSS!!!!", nuff said I called and made appointments for use to get a two hour massage, two hours of well needed tension relief. The rub down was just what we needed and we walked out of the salon completely relaxed and relieved. I think if we were cartoon characters we would have entered with bags and suitcases on our shoulders and then it would have shown us leaving with clouds under our feet, ahhhh. The evening at that point had just begun and we continued our adventure (lame I know) at Houlihan's where we enjoyed some delicious appetizers and sinful martinis. We spent almost two hours at dinner, just talking and enjoying the evening out. I love nights like this where we just get to be carefree again, and the conversation just flows. During dinner we both get told by our husbands to enjoy ourselves and not to come home before 9:00 that night. Finishing dinner we notice that we are still not past our curfew and make the decision to meander around target for a bit, a movie option is discussed but we are both a little to tired to take on a two hour saga at 10:00. As I am headed to Target, I get a phone call and a little girls voice says, "mommy, do you have Lavender Lamb in your car?" A quick glance in my backseat quickly brings me back to reality as I look at the two car seats and in one of them a well loved purple lamb is slumped. "Yes I do Havely" I respond, and she begs me to bring him home so that she can go to sleep. It has been a long week for her just starting school, and the husband decides that the Lamb is more important the the curfew so we hurry and head home. I get in the house and take Lavender Lamb upstairs to find a sleeping damsel that had crashed out waiting for her security to show. I kissed her hand, tucked her in, and put the giraffe like lamb under her arm. Angela and I spent the next two hours listening to music and talking, and then when we decided that our energy was spent and bed was calling, the power went out. Black, dark, holy cow this house is dark when the power is off. Cries from upstairs come immediately and I try to navigate up the staircase in the dark. Jaaron is searching for a light source (why do we never have this stuff handy?!) and I am sure I look like an idiot getting through the dark by touch (ha ha no one can see me though). The howling gets closer and I realize Havely has made her way out of her room, I grab her and head into Grant's room. By this time a light has made it's way up the stairs and we navigate back to the family room, kids wide awake and scared. We sat in the family room and waited, and after about 20 minutes we realized that something was really wrong and it wasn't coming back on anytime soon. The entire canyon is dark and our neighborhood is dark and silent. With everyone being up, the kids were curious, so we decided to head outside. A nice breeze was blowing and without all of the city light pollution you could see the stars quite well. With a touch of silvery moonlight illuminating the yards, the kids danced around in the yard and played with the dogs. They played with wonder and amazement that it was so different than anything they had experienced. It was nice to get outside, even though it was almost 1 AM by this time. This was one of those moments where you just sit back and take it all in. This isn't going to happen on a daily basis, and sometimes you just have to abandon the rules. We played outside for about 30 minutes and then headed inside to hope for some current to arrive and to put two tired kids to bed. The house was hot and we couldn't find a way to turn a light on for them, so it was either have a slumber party in the family room, head home with Angela (at this point she took an exit to her fully powered home, complete with functioning AC) or wait for CPS to save us. After we started discussing our options (by this time the entire clan is cranky), we begin to argue, even Havely is interjecting opinions into the conversation. And then bam! Power is back, sign of relief! I scoop up the girl, he grabs the boy (who is almost bear like) and we put them to bed. We are ready to crash as well, but we head outside one last time to take a look at how different it all looked with all the light, half of the stars looked like they had gone to bed for the night too. I finally hit my fluffy pillow and as I am falling into a coma, I think of the days moments, random and by chance and I smile. I like the randomness of life sometimes, it creates some of the best memories. 8.27.11