Saturday's Holiday Party

I hear those sleigh bells.... jingle, jingle...

The holidays. The time of the year where everyone over extends to make everyone else happy and no one seems to be completely satisfied. The 'tour' is coming up. This weekend we were invited to Phil and Jen's house for a Christmas get together. Phil is a friend of mine from college. Jen is, obviously, his wife. They have a baby girl named Hannah. When I got the email, it said kids were welcome. Rachael and I don't have any kids... we won't be married until May, but nowadays, it's not uncommon to have kids with each other or someone else prior to marriage. But anyway... the point is neither one of have any kids.

So, the email offered food and drinking and whatnot... ok, it didn't specifically say "whatnot" but I threw that in to cover all the rest. So today is the first Saturday with NFL football. 3 games. The Steelers starting it off. Easily, the Steelers are my second favorite NFL team behind the Lions. I grew up 2 hours away from the 'burgh and was a fan of their Super Bowl wins in the late 70's/ early 80's. I was 4, but still. I figured we'd go, crack open a few beers, eat some snacks, watch football and tell storys. My roommate my Senior year in college lives near up and we were going to ride with him, his wife (Megan) and his 4 month old son. We met them off the beltway.

We drove in, and made a Steeler comment. Dan said that we would be able to see the second half. We got there a little after 2. First, I have to say that Hannah may be the most adorable little girls EVER. She is very smiley and has long lashes, and very personable. She is about the age of our nephew, Owen. Dan had baby Daniel, and he is very cute too. He is still very young and is working on developing his personality. We were the first to arrive. We brought beer and Dan brought wine. We opened the beer started to talk and munch on food.

Slowly, people arrived... Jen's mom, and brother - some people we don't know, and then people we do... or I should say people I know. Mainly, they were people I knew from college, and not everyone had met Rachael. All of them had kids. Hell, there was one guy who had 2 kids. Wow. I am almost 30. Rach is 28. And looking around we realized that we are not ready for kids just yet.

We didn;t get to watch football. That's okay. We had fun nevertheless. It just wasn't what we expected. There were kids everywhere. They were playing around having fun, we were sitting around talking. Updating everyone on where we lived, how far along we were with the wedding plans, and such. We cracked open a few more beers and had a great time.

There was a side effect to today though... a happy one. First, as time went on and we had talked to a number of people, Rachael and I sat there and talked. This is a common phenomenon with us. Many times when we are with a group of people, often times, Rachael and I find ourselves talking to each other. We seem to be in our own little world, and talk and talk. We don't do this on purpose or concsiously, it just happens. That's one thing I love about her. She is my best friend in the entire world. The other side effect was as others were lilling around with their kids, and taking care of their adorable little treasures, we became very aware of how much we enjoyed our life exactly the way it is right now. Sure, we think about children, and will probably conceive. But not for a while. We just haven't spent enough time with each other yet, I have so much fun being with her, and doing things with just her right now. In a few years, we will be ready. But we really enjoy each other and want to have a few years to ourselves.

I love her so much.

Like I said, we had a great time today, even without football... go figure. But we did leave early and arrived back home to our 2 cats and dog - our family - and turned on the games. I am truly happy for our friends and their families. It seems like they have a lot of love for their kids and are happy with their lives. At the same time, I am wholey content with where Rachael and I are and our life together right now. Our path is just different. And we are more than happy to travel that path together.