Valentine's Day dinner was really nice. We arrived at the restaurant about 10 minutes before a full-on blizzard snow squall hit, so we were able to calmly watch it from inside the restaurant while enjoying a glass of wine!
Sadly, I failed in not getting a single picture taken the entire night. We got too wrapped up in conversation and I completely forgot. Oh well, you will have to take my word for it, that it was a very, very nice evening. The food was amazing. We both had salmon which was cooked to perfection and paired it with an unlikely bottle of Malbec wine - neither of us was interested in going with the obligatory white wine. I won't get into what was for dessert.
What I like most about this relationship with the GF is that for the first time in my life, there is mutual admiration and appreciation between me and someone else. It is a refreshing balance that we both are on the same page in regard to how we feel and appreciate each other. GF keeps telling me the only thing she is disappointed about is that she didn't meet me 20 years ago!
Hey BA, Your Valentine's Dinner sounds lovely. And I was just saying to someone tonight that I prefer red wine with salmon. Not traditional but a nicely cooked salmon is very rich and sometimes red works best. (I do like a crisp Reisking sometimes too) I also saw a sign today "I wish I'd met you sooner so I could have loved you longer". Nice thought but as Betsy & WII have pointed out - you'd have both been in a different place & the timing was not right. Better that you met now than never.
So yes, I told the GF when she said she wished she had met me 20 years ago that she probably wouldn't have liked me then - different time and different place - plus I wasn't technically "available" 20 years ago.
Bets - sometimes dessert is nice before AND after a meal!
Wonka - the Chart house is special. A little pricey, but the food was incredible, as was the company!
So this weekend it will be my turn to treat her at a really nice German restaurant - bring on the sauerkraut and beer!
In just 2 1/2 weeks I will be sitting down with D18 and D16 and asking them how they would feel about increasing our household size by 3 come this June. I think it should go well, but one never knows...
So GF decided to broach the subject of all of them moving in with me this summer with her D17 and S15 last night. She said overall they were okay with it. Her D17's concern was losing her babysitting job that she has with a family that lives in their high rise apartment building and her S15's main concern is being farther away from his friends. I still need to talk to my two D's. Waiting for D18 to come home from college on her Spring Break in two weeks to do that.
I earned major Dad points last night. With both D18 and D16 now driving, we have needed another vehicle when D18 is home from school, especially this summer when they both will have jobs at different locations. So last night I bought a nice little 2005 BMW 330 Convertible. It has been very well cared for and is in outstanding shape. I sent a picture of it to D18 and she was in disbelief and over the moon excited. Now if she can get me out of the driver's seat, she might even get to drive it this summer! :-)
Ok, I didn't realize the kids involved were so old. I know ) to live with your GF, but have you given any thought to just continuing to date until all or most of the kids are out of hihh school? Seems to me you risk a couple of things by trying to combine families at this point: 1) the kids resenting the disruption to their lives (moving away from friends at this age is HUGE) and 2) opposite sex teens who aren't related living in the same house? I remember making out with .y new stepbrother when I was fifteen and he stayed with us for a summer.
Yes we have thought about just waiting for 2 more years before doing this but our preference is to move in this direction if everyone is onboard with it. Now that being said, we are not going to force the kids into this situation. We will discuss it with them and if any of them are adamantly opposed to the idea then we will wait. We don't unrealistically expect them to be jumping up and down yelling hurrah either. We know it's a big change for them.
As far as moving away from friends, they currently live in Northern Virginia and the kids go a school in DC. The school in DC is a charter school which pulls kids from all over the area, so it's not like her son's friends are living in their neighborhood and he just walks over to their house. To visit them he actually has to hop on the Metro and go into DC. Moving to my house would mean his Metro ride is another 15 to 20 minutes longer. Or we would drive them - or in a few months he could drive himself if he wanted to see them.
So far the idea of moving into my house is actually being received by her kids better than I expected. Her oldest daughter is really looking at only a month or so as she will be away for most of July visiting her grandparents and then off to college in October. My oldest is already at college so over the summer she will be with us 50% of the time and the other 50% with her mom.
As for the possibility of hanky panky, I don't see that happening and I don't think I'm being naïve either. Both my D's have serious boyfriends and they have been around her son enough that I'm pretty confident there is no attraction or concern about them crossing that line. I might be more concerned if the girls were the younger ones (early teens) and he was older.
With the current visitation schedules we have now with our exes, it is going to be only a day or two each week at most that they would all be in the same house.
However, the bottom line is that we aren't dictating this move. These are all 4 really level headed teenagers and we want them to remain that way and know that they have say in the issue and how they feel about it matters to them.
