10 Best Days

It's Jason's birthday on Monday, so we hired a babysitter on Saturday and went out for a date afternoon (the best kind of date since we came home, put the kids to bed, and still had the whole evening to ourselves). I looked forward to it all week, the chance to escape our regular, adult lives and have some fun with no responsibilities for a few hours.

We saw Date Night with Tina Fey and Steve Carrell and it was much better than I thought it would be. There is something very relaxing about munching popcorn in a dark theatre, holding hands like teenagers with your husband and laughing together. It's my favourite type of escape because it immediately reminds me of all of the other movie experiences along our journey - it feels timeless somehow to sit in the theatre and remember why we chose each other in the first place.

After the movie we went to Chianti's for some pasta and conversation. While we were there I asked Jason which days so far in his life were his best ones. When I went for my morning run this popped into my head and I had already compiled my list, and I wanted to see which of my best days intersected with his.

It was a fun exercise. We strolled back down memory lane, remembering trips, experiences, and memories. Many of our best days were the same (the 3 obvious ones were our wedding and the days both kids were born), some were different, and one or two were before we met each other.

It's amazing the details you can recall about certain days that become seared on your memory, and they aren't days when you are sitting around at home in your pj's watching movies and eating chips. They are experiences where you are out in the world, doing interesting things with people you love.

Not one of our 10 best days involved material gifts. They were all experiences that you couldn't hold in your hand or touch, but things that involved all of our senses: the colours of the water in Cornwall, the unhurried leisure of our first morning in California when we stopped at a park to let the kids play, the joy on Ava's face during The Lion King play last summer, and the incredible peace we felt on our lanai in Maui.

Thinking about our 10 best days made us both glad that we purchased a time share in December with places to stay all over the world. Those are the memories we want to give our kids. Not more and more stuff, but more and more experiences. What are your 10 best days of life so far? I look forward to making more memories in the years to come, and adding to my list of best days.