You know what it’s like.  You work all day and spend time with your co-workers and all you talk about is business, money and what needs to be accomplished. Yeah, well that’s Joe and I lately.  So we were in NEED of a little getaway.  A date night, if you will.

I’d had this Groupon purchase for a gondola ride in Huntington Beach that I’d made months ago and with it’s expiration date looming around the same time the baby is due, I thought for sure it would end up in the garbage bin, never a gondola ride to be had.  But then Thursday was expected to be 85 degrees and I just HAD to force a date night upon us!  I decided it just wasn’t proper for us to be all work and no play when we have a baby on the way.  We should have SOME down time to hang out and talk about ANYTHING other than what work and to-do’s we need to accomplish. And didn’t we deserve a celebration of our ONE BIG project down?

Our date night started at 3:30pm with a ride down to Huntington Beach.  It took us an hour and a half to get there!  An HOUR and a HALF!  So right from the start of our sacred date night we were all, “No wonder we never go out in LA!  We could have stayed home and enjoyed this last hour and a half relaxing instead of fighting traffic!”    Only, we wouldn’t have relaxed if we were at home.  We would have been on our computers or tackling some sort of to-do item.  It’s hard not to when an unfinished project is staring you down in the face calling out “Hey, lazy ass, you don’t have time to relax!  Get to work!”

In the car at least we were miles away from our screaming unfinished projects.  And once we we made it to our destination and started our private gondola ride, the drive was totally worth it.  It was such a beautiful day, our gondola “driver” was funny, sang Italian songs and made us kiss while we went under the bridge.  “It’s good luck”, he explained.  Something about being on the water and feeling the warm sun is so relaxing.

Afterwards we drove a little further down the coast and found a great restaurant in downtown Huntington Beach to watch the sunset over the ocean, one of my favorite things to do.  And we only slipped up and started talking business ONCE before we nipped that conversation in the bud!  For those few hours spent in the warm sun while floating on the water in peace and then watching the sunset while eating delicious food and spending relaxing time together, it felt more like a mini-vacation than just a date night.  And all seemed right in the world for an evening.