Double Date

Now that Hillary is 16, she's officially allowed to date. The weekend after her birthday, her boyfriend set up a group date at the nearby skating rink with all of their friends and even a Disney Princess birthday cake. He seems like a great kid, and a hard worker. He has a job at Wal-Mart and manages to work quite a few hours while juggling school and band. Last night was one of the few Friday evenings he didn't have to work, so Hillary wanted to take advantage of it. She invited one of her best friends and her boyfriend to come over and hang out with her and Larry at our house. She's never been one to have friends over often. I think she prefers going to other people's house where the responsibility of keeping everyone happy is on the host, and she can just enjoy herself. So when Larry first arrived, she seemed a little nervous. Wanting to help, but be discreet about it, I casually challenged my husband to a dart game, then offhandedly threw in, "Oh...do you guys want to play?" They didn't want to play, but they did want to watch. So we all went downstairs and Yancy and I had a rousing game of darts with wild shots and lots of verbal banter (He would say "trash talk"). The kids had a great time laughing at us...especially my technique of lifting my leg out behind me as I threw. I have to admit, it was a lot of fun for me too. I haven't flirted with my husband like that in a while. He laughed when I kept inching closer to the board (because my arms are shorter...and women's golf has closer tees, don't they?). And in the end, I let him win...or he just won because he's better than me.
Then it was 9:00 and Hillary's friends showed up. The ice was officially broken and it was time for the old people to retire to our Friday night TV show and let the young'uns have the downstairs family room. It was kind of nice to have our show punctuated by teenaged laughter from the other room. We just looked at each other...he took my hand...and we smiled.