Article Contributed on: 2/16/2008 10:36:45 AM
In 1987 I had my first date with my husband.
I met
Kevin at a community pool through a mutual friend only a few days before. The mutual friend was a fan of Casa Bonita in Lakewood and thought how fun it might be for a big group, including me and the guy I had met at the pool, to eat there.
It was a fix-up in a round-about way. Though we'd be in a group, the intent of the mutual friend was to get Kevin and me paired up.
When Kevin knocked on my condo door that evening while the rest of the group waited in the car, I swung the door open to these words from him:
Oh. It's you.
Kevin told me I was not who he was expecting. He told me the day we met at the pool he met several other women and he had gotten the names and faces confused. He was expecting another person to answer my door. He seemed disappointed.
Not a great start.
We had fun, though. I guess Kevin got over the disappointment of the identity confusion. We were married two years later.
We have joked over the past two decades about our exotic first date at Casa Bonita. When we moved back here in 2005 after a fifteen year absence, we heard it was still open and thriving in Lakewood.
Last night we decided Casa Bonita would be a great kid place, and we were right. Our sons,
Hayden, age twelve, and
Carson, age nine, along with a pal,
Ben Daley, delighted in the music of the band, the cliff diving, the skits, the arcade, the caves, the waterfall and more features of Casa Bonita, including the food.
Kevin and I told the boys we had our first date there in 1987 and that their dad was expecting a date with someone other than their mom, but that we got along, anyway.
They feigned a little interest in the story, then ran off to explore the cave of Black Bart.