Family Night Out

Last Sunday evening we joined three other kindergarten families at a hibachi restaurant across town for dinner.  We ended up in a private room in the back that had two hibachi cook tops.  The children sat at one and the adults sat on the other.  It worked out perfectly for our party of 17.  I’m sure the patrons of the restaurant who were there to enjoy their meals appreciated us being contained to the back too.  The kids, while very well-behaved, were so excited to see each other and could hardly contain their joy.  It was really adorable.  Sadly,  I left my camera in the car so I didn’t get any photographs of our dinner.

Somehow, we managed to still have room for dessert and caravan-ed over to a local ice cream institution, Del’s Freez.  The tiny little walk-up ice cream shop on US-1 has been in business in Melbourne since 1956.  It recently re-opened after closing for repairs.

LOL!  Anyway, the place looked great with it’s new paint job and it was as busy as ever with lines almost out onto the highway.

The ice cream is all soft-serve and comes in four flavors- chocolate, vanilla, strawberry and peanut butter (my personal fave).  Twists of these flavors are possible too.  The topping selection is pretty impressive as well.  As you can see, the kiddos loved it!

And just like in 1956, all transactions are cash only 🙂

I hope we’re able to get together with these families again this summer.  Wildman’s kindergarten class was a close little group and I hope that we can remain friends even when our kids get split up among 3 different first grade classes in the fall.

Our family drove down to the end of Mathers bridge to watch the sun set after getting sufficiently sugared up at Del’s.  The boys (including my husband) enjoyed climbing all over the rocks while I took a few photos of the huge orange sun dissolving into the purple haze on the horizon.

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Christmas Eve Eve Dinner Party

Last night was our annual dinner and gift exchange with our good friends.  Notably absent in the photo above is Steph.  Although invited she chose not to attend.  I’m not going to get into all of the issues surrounding her decision but I will say that it’s probably for the best that she was not there.  Things have not been good between her and the rest of us for quite some time.  I guess divorce does that- tears apart families, ruins friendships, etc.  It’s really a shame.  But I will say that in true the Christmas spirit, we managed to have a wonderful evening full of amazing food and laughs in spite of the drama that’s been going on.  Everyone came over about 6 PM and before we knew it half of the kids were passed out and it was past 11 PM!!!  That’s a good night 🙂

I chose to host the party at our house this year instead of trying to do another progressive dinner party.  It was easier just to keep everything in one place.  The kids enjoyed an assortment of Frostie sodas, homemade veggie macaroni and cheese with green bean casserole and crescent rolls.  For appetizers we had Italian dry salami slices, summer sausage, smoked Gouda cheese, Colby Jack cheese, an assortment of crackers, cream cheese topped with chipotle peach jam, Belgian dark chocolate tea cups filled with raspberry Chocovine, and Big Red’s colossal shrimp cocktail.  My friend, B, brought a turkey breast, smashed potatoes and stuffing that perfectly complimented all of the sides I prepared.  For dessert there was chocolate cake, three kinds of fudge, cookies and coconut custard tarts.

Dude!  I think I gained 10 lbs.

I bought the children party crackers to open after dinner.  We’d never tried them before and thought they added a little something fun to the evening.  Most of the toys inside were cheap and got lost easily but were fun nonetheless. Especially the colorful paper crowns.

Everyone exchanged presents before dessert.  My living room looked like a tornado touched down.  There was paper, bows, box remnants, etc. everywhere!  The kids squeals of delight were priceless.

Like I said, the Christmas spirit filled our home last night.  Our hearts and bellies were full.  We didn’t want to break the spell of the night by ending the festivities.  It’s one of those special times that we will always remember.

Friday Evening with the Boys

J decided to go to Titusville kiteboarding late on Friday afternoon.  When I finished up my last Zumba class for the week (I did 8 classes while Steph was in NYC!) I rushed home to take a shower.  I had a craving for my favorite hole-in-the-wall Mexican, Taco City.  I called J to see if he’d be home at a reasonable hour so we go together.  His voicemail came on so it seemed he was occupied with the wind…

I made the executive decision to go anyway.  Just me and my boys.  We’d get J an hombre to go so he wouldn’t completely miss out.  The boys were so excited to go to Burrito Town, as Wildman calls it.  We piled into the car and headed north to Cocoa Beach.

I placed our order and settled the boys into a booth.  Luckily, it was still early and the restaurant wasn’t very crowded.  We got in and found a seat without a problem.  If you hit it at the wrong time, you could wait a loooong time for a table.  It’s a tiny but very popular place.

Cutie Pie entertained himself with PlayDoh while we waited.  I never go to a restaurant without some form of entertainment for the kids…

I had liquid entertainment of my own.

Wildman chatted with me and ate a ton of chips.

After dinner we decided to swing by a new beach park, Hightower, to let the boys run off some energy.

There’s a really long boardwalk above the dunes.  The boys loved checking it out and stopping every so often to read the wildlife information signs.

The sunset was beautiful.  There was a warm breeze.  We sat there and soaked in the twilight.

It was a great evening out with my boys.  We need to do this kind of thing more often.