TWENTY Years?

Twenty years... hmmmmm can you believe that on June 2, 1995 a certain Steve and a certain Karen had their FIRST DATE?????

Yup... we sure did!  A mutual friend exchanged our phone numbers a few months before... we had some nice phone conversations and finally decided to get together for a real DATE! You know, to see each other in person.  I was a busy working single mom, managing the jobs of advertising editor and handling all of the listings at the real estate office, plus selling real estate myself. I was raising two girls ages 10 and 12. I didn't have much time to date, so this was kinda special.

In between real estate house showings, I scheduled in some time for this guy. I had a short time between an open house and later a private home showing.  So I agreed to meet Steve in a public place.  He had an hour and a half to prove his stuff....  or I was gone!

We chose to meet up at a little ice cream shop called Hansen's on Gray St in Green Bay.  I liked what I saw----  a tall handsome guy who was polite but nervous.  He must have liked what he saw, because he stayed. LOL!!!

The ice cream shop had a promotional event going on featuring Stewart's Root Beer and they were serving root beer floats in amber colored mason jars.  I let him order one for me, and we sat and visited for the next hour and a half.  He showed me pics of his boys, ages 11 and 12 and talked about all of the fun stuff he enjoyed doing with them. He was one of those rare guys who didn't regret paying his child support, because he knew the boys needed it.  He didn't mind paying the extra mortgage for the roof over their heads or the taxes on their home so they could feel secure and stay in the same home, and at the same schools after the divorce which happened 2 years prior. He did what was best for the boys,  even if it meant that he didn't have much money to his name afterwards.  His boys were top priority and he was a good dad.

He won me over.

We kept the mason jars......

On our wedding day, two years later, 

(while dressed in our wedding clothes....) 

we took those same jars back to Hansen's

 and had them refill the jars with 

root beer floats. 

and tonight after supper, we refilled them again! 

 (this is our cutting board with our wedding date engraved into it,

a gift from our daughter and her fiance for Christmas) 

We sat out on the front porch this evening, 

sipping our root beer floats 

and talking about the twists and turns that our lives have taken

over the course of twenty years. 

Here is how we looked 

twenty years ago when we first started dating:

As we chatted though the evening, the doggers were NOT impressed and soon dozed off.  I guess that our memories and reminiscing didn't include them, so they didn't care.

 I am not sure if you readers really care either.  

But I thought I would write about it anyhow. 

The best decision I made twenty years ago,

was to go have a root beer float!