Those were the days…

There comes a time in every dad’s life where he has to stop thinking about himself and start channeling everything, and I mean everything, into his family. That time seems to have finally come for this dad. Gone are the days where the wife and I can head out to a fancy restaurant on a moment’s notice. Or the great times we had sampling Chardonnay’s and Riesling’s along with some fancy cheese’s we couldn’t even pronounce. All gone.
All of these luxuries (they seem like luxuries now) I can live without, but there is one such luxury in particular that I can’t seem to let go of no matter how hard I try. It is described by millions as a place of excess. A one word oasis that needs no explanation. VEGAS. Gone are the days where the guys and I would pack up the SUV and head northeast on the 15. The destination was sweet, but the journey there was no less exciting as we laughed and reminisced about the past trips we’d taken and how this current trip would be bigger and better than the previous. The gambling, the drinking, the starting the night at 1am extravaganza was the norm as we’d set our limits high and wouldn’t stop until our bodies were pushed to their peaks. Now, with son in tow and a body just over thirty, the creak of the bones and the stamina of a used up racehorse, these distant yet fond memories seem pretty much an oasis of their own. The reason I bring up Vegas now is that a handful of our friends, still single, have their annual Vegas birthday bash coming up. The trip consists of a night out at the most popular nightclubs (last year we reveled at the Encore pool nightclub in a private cabana), shopping, and enough food and libations to feed a herd of cows. Now that being said, I’m having a hard time selecting the “no” toggle on the Evite that I received a few days back. The wife could care less since she’s never been a big fan of Vegas anyways, but me on the other hand, it really hurts. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a hardcore gambler, nor am I a drunk. I, like many other average Joe’s, enjoy a few days in the desert to live it up a bit. Often times, when I’m having a bad day or I need to make the decision of buying that large cup of coffee or saving the money for the college fund, I simply look at a picture of the little guy and everything becomes clear again. I guess I just need to look at his picture reaaaally hard for this one.