The opportunities for a date night are few and far between here in Bethel. We have no movie theater, no bars, no clubs, no mini golf courses. The few restaurants we have all pretty much serve the same expensive food.
Every few months the Cultural Center hosts a "community" event. Tickets to these events aren't the cheapest, but usually a nice dinner is served (something you won't find in the local restaurants) and various items, depending on the theme of the event, are auctioned and raffled off.
This year we decided to attend one of the events we did not get a chance to go to last year, the NRA dinner. (Yes, NRA, as in National Rifle Association) Mark laughed at me saying only in Bethel would I ever consider an NRA event to be a date night! So true! But I was really looking forward to this night. Mark and I hadn't been out without the kids since our Hawaii trip in April and we were due some adult time. Plus, I had heard really good things about the prime rib dinner.
As our date night approached I got more and more excited. The doors to the Cultural Center opened at 5:00 but dinner wasn't served till 6:30. We knew we wanted to get there at a decent time so we could get good seats. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a restaurant style dinner with quaint little private tables reserved for ticket holders. It's long tables in rows so you can sit next to your loved one and all your closest Bethel friends.
The babysitter arrived a little before 5:30 and just as we were getting ready to walk out the door Luke throws up! In desperate hopes that it was too much Halloween candy and running around we did a quick clean up and left. The babysitter promised to call if he got sick again.
So we got to the Cultural Center later than hoped and we paid the price for it. There wasn't a single seat! We lapped the room twice without any luck finding 2 seats together. The event coordinators advised us to get in line for dinner and assured us they would get 2 seats together for us once we got our food. No sooner did we get in line and my phone rang... Yep, it was the babysitter, Luke had gotten sick again! I promised to eat quick and then hurry home.
We got our food and again tried to find seats. No coordinators could be found to help us (they were probably all enjoying their food together at seats reserved just for them). I found a single seat between two groups of people I didn't know who didn't say a single word to me the entire time I ate. Mark ended up on the other end of the room sitting on a piano bench. I tried not to worry too much about the fact that our date night was being cut short and we weren't even able to eat a quick dinner together. At least I would get a nice prime rib dinner before I left... So much for wishful thinking. The meat was dry, the baked potato was burnt beyond edibleness, and the salad consisted of just lettuce. I ate what I could and left Mark with some friends (at least one of us should be able to enjoy a night without kids) and went home to a sick child.
When all was said and done, between dinner and raffle tickets and the babysitter we spent about $200 for barely edible food, no raffle wins and not even being able to eat next to each other for the short time I was there. The joys of being a parent, and the limitations of living in Bethel. Lesson learned: wait to have date night till we are back in the lower 48 and $200 will pay for good food and a private table! Can't wait till our visit home in February!
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