Happy Hallmark Day

This guy looks like a perv.

I loathe to even acknowledge this one, but - queue fanfare - today is Valentine's Day.

Also known as the shittiest day of the school year.

Usually, we don't celebrate this one.  Fortunately Kris is one of those rare females that doesn't buy into the whole Valentine's Day thing - we're both in the mindset that it's little more than a Hallmark Holiday anyway.

And, to be honest, when you're married to Brian J. Hough, everyday is like Valentine's Day, ladies.

Alayna and Abby tear into a Valentine's Day care package from the Grandma and Papa John. . .

Personally, I always take Valentine's Day off of work, as it is - without a doubt - the shittiest day of the school year.  Teenagers really don't want to hear about the Persian Wars when they're distracted by chocolates, stuffed animals, and heaps and heaps of overblown drama.

No thanks.

80's babysitting ruled.

So besides a glorious day off of work, this year we said 'what the hell,' and decided to go to dinner.  Not necessarily to mark the occasion, of course, but rather because it happened to be a Friday, and on Fridays Sunchild holds it's weekly Parents Night Out.  For $25, we can drop off both kids from 7 - 11pm.


That's, like, 1980s babysitting prices, people.

This place is awesome.

Initially we were going to splurge and go out to a nice steakhouse, but we opted against this since Valentine's Day is one of the busiest nights of the year for restaurants, and service was bound to be terrible at larger venues.  And with paying $25 for a steak, I want that shit perfect.

With that in mind, we opted instead for our usual sushi joint - Shiso Sushi - which is never at half-capacity anyway.

Tonight, though, it was packed (not surprisingly), but we ended up getting a table after about ten minutes and the service - and sushi - was excellent.

Afterwards, we got Kris her usual Boba tea fix from that joint down on Osceola Parkway and swung out to Stogies so I could sit outside and have a cigar while Kris enjoyed her tea.  After a meal, we fancy ourselves some good ol' fashioned people-watching, and down in the Hunter's Creek Villages - where all the date-friendly restaurants and bars are located - there's always idiots to gaze upon.

We picked up the kids around 10pm, just as they were mowing into bowls of ice cream. . . 

So yeah, that was basically our Hallmark Holiday.  I'd wish you and yours a happy one in return, but that'd just be buying into a horrible tradition that really shouldn't exist in the first place.

So, instead, Happy Parents Night Out, America.

- Brian

The Seven Year Itch

Hi gang.

I know I haven't checked in awhile.  Again, not much as happened around here lately - Kris and I teach all day, come home, unsuccessfully attempt to get our children to eat their dinner, put them down via the ol' bath/books/bed routine, and then watch Netflix and have a drink or three before falling asleep and repeating the whole process.

Sound awesome?  Have kids, then.

Anyway, I figured it'd probably be rude of me not to post something today, seeing how it's Kris and I's Seven Year Anniversary today, and we haven't cheated on each other or grown bored with each other.  Yet.  I think that's grounds for a blog post.

Mikado Sushi of Hunters Creek

So yeah, since you can't really celebrate the anniversary of your nuptials properly on a frickin' Monday night after work, we decided to go out the Friday evening before (the 4th, as it were.)  We dropped the kids off at Sunchild for their Parents Night Out program and checked out a Sushi joint called Mikado Sushi.  The prices were pretty decent, and the sushi was excellent.

Good sushi, folks.

Unfortunately - like we do every, single time - we ordered like a bunch of uncultured assholes.  We could've stuck with a couple sushi rolls and been fine, and God knows I should never order Japanese wine, as I know little or nothing to do with it.  Yet, once again, we proudly put on our Retard Pants and ordered terrible drinks and an additional, pricey Bento Box (however the hell you spell that) which was full of deep-fried terribleness that we could barely finish.

Yuck City.

After an hour or so of gorging ourselves past the point of being full, we waddled out to the car and sat in the parking lock contemplating our next move.  We were so overly-full that nothing sounded good, so we debated what we'd do next for about twenty minutes, sitting in a parked car in the middle of Hunter's Creek.  Like a couple of idiots.  It was too early to pick up the girls (we spent $30 so folks could watch them, and, having only been out for an hour and a half, it didn't really feel like we had gotten our money's worth yet.)

Just to give you an idea of how shitty we both felt, Kris suggested we go to a bar and have a couple drinks, and I said NO.  Me.  Seriously.  I was so full, beer sounded terrible.

Folks, if that doesn't spell disaster, I don't know what does.

Anyway, Kris wanted to pick up one of her go-to indulgences, a Boba Tea from some joint down on Osceola Parkway, so that's what we did.  Afterwards, we decided to hit up one of my guilty pleasures - Stogies.

Check it out if you ever get the chance. . .

Yours Truly, from an earlier excursion with coworkers

Stogies is a cigar bar that I frequent with some of my esteemed associates from work, and it is excellent.  They have a walk-in humidor, a really awesome and friendly staff, and a great craft beer selection to choose from.  The fact that there's a place around the corner that allows you to smoke fine cigars whilst drinking snob beer in public is nothing short of life-saving.


I didn't get a drink this time around, though, and since Kris isn't a huge fan of sitting amidst billows of cigar smoke, we decided to sit outside in the refreshingly awesome weather, where she drank her bizarro tea and I had a cigar.  Then, tired and considerably lame, we opted to pick up our kids - by that point in time, it had been a few hours, so we didn't feel quite so pathetic.

Seven.

So yeah.  That's how the Seventh Anniversary went down.  Nothing crazy or 'awwwww'-inspiring (get it?).  Tonight we crack open our traditional bottle of champagne and drink to one more divorce-less year.

Slainté,

- Brian