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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Kids Night Out

Late Tuesday afternoon Steph suggested that we take the boys out to dinner and a movie.  Since J had to work late and I did not want to cook, it was a fantastic idea!  I had recently come across the Ben and Jerry’s free ice cream cone promotion for March 23rd and suggested that we take advantage of it while we were out on the town.

We hit El Chico’s first for dinner.  Apparently Tuesday night is the time to go.  The place was almost completely empty.  We did not have to wait long for anything which is key with four active boys!

Steph and I had the chicken and spinach enchiladas- YUM!  The enchiladas came with a side of diablo corn.  That’s my favorite thing to say now.  DIABLO CORN!!!!

The older boys enjoyed corn dogs and fries…  So healthy, I know!

The younger boys had mac and cheese…  Cutie Pie at his entire portion!

The boys were very well-behaved in the restaurant.  I was so impressed!

After dinner we headed next door to Ben and Jerry’s.  The free cone line was around the building!  Steph did not want to wait.  She said that she’d rather pay for ice cream than wait in the line.  The only problem was that there was not another ice cream parlor near by.  I suggested we try it.  If the line moved too slowly then we’d just leave.  We could always go to the movie and buy the kids candy instead.  Again, so healthy!

We waited in line less than five minutes before a nice lady with a clipboard showed up.  She asked T-bone which public school he attended so she could make a tally.  Then she said if we could produce a penny from 1999 or earlier she would let us go to the front of the line!  I immediately whipped out my wallet and found my new lucky penny from 1980.  All six of us got a “Front of the Line” pass!  Yahoo!

In no time we were placing our order for three Cake Batter cones, one Chunky Monkey, one Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl and one Orange Cream sherbet cone!

It was so cute watching the boys wait for their cones.  They were sweet and said their thank yous when their cones arrived in their hands.  Wildman even saw one of the teachers from his preschool in line… with her husband… and dog…  She brought her dog to Ben and Jerry’s…

Amazingly, amidst all the chaos of free cone day, we were able to find an open booth to sit down!  All of us piled in to enjoy our sweet treats.

The ice cream hit the spot!

After polishing off our cones, we headed next door to the movie theater just in time to see the 7:10 PM showing of Diary of a Wimpy Kid.  It was the only kids movie that was playing.  Wildman has the book and loves it.  The movie followed the book almost exactly.  It was great!  All of us laughed out loud.

I told Steph that we’ve kind of set the bar high for Spring Break considering we partied like rock stars on a random Tuesday school night!  🙂

Big Boys’ Night Out a la Harpooning…

My cousin, S, and I have older boys who are 9 months apart. Wildman is 3 1/2- years-old and T-bone is 4. They’ve been suffering from too much togetherness with their respective little bros. Patience is short and tempers have been flaring. The little brothers are really cramping the older boys’ style. They want to do everything the big boys do. S and I decided that it would be nice for our families to take just the older boys out for a special “date” night. One-on-one time was in order. Wildman and T-bone needed to be the center of attention for a while.

Our plan was to meet at Toys R Us to buy the boys Wall-E shirts then take them to see the movie. J and I had had a late lunch and were not hungry. So, we decided to feed Wildman and Cutie Pie at home then meet up with T-bone’s family later at Toys R Us when my mom arrived to babysit. I’m so glad we didn’t join them for dinner! I almost peed my pants laughing when I heard of their dinner adventure.

It was supposed to be T-bone’s choice of where to go for dinner. Natually, he wanted to go to McDonalds for a chicken nugget Happy Meal. T-bone’s dad, Big Red, had other plans, however. When they reached the McDonald’s parking lot, he started complaining that he didn’t want to eat there. He really wanted to go to Long John Silver’s. S explained that the purpose of going to McDonald’s was for T-bone’s special night out and basically told him to suck it up. Big Red complained some more and ended up convincing T-bone to try “new” chicken nuggets at LJS’s… Big Red is self-centered like that.

Upon arriving at the run down ghetto-hole that our one-and-only LJS’s has become, Big Red got what was coming to him. While S was ordering Big Red stepped on a gigantic cockroach. One of the antennae harpooned his big toe through his flip flop!!! He spent the next 20-minutes in the men’s room trying to extract the antenna and clean the wound. Big Red tends to be a hypochondriac so you can imagine the horror/hyperventilation that was going on in the men’s room. S was completely oblivious to what was going on. She just saw Big Red disappear into the restroom and figured he was having digestive issues since he was gone for so long.

Meanwhile, T-bone decided that he had to pee. S got up to take him into the disgustingly dirty women’s room whereupon T-bone asked, “Is that poo in the potty, Mom.” S answered, “No, T-bone. The potty is just that dirty.” They managed to escape the germ-ridden restroom with as little surface contact as possible. Big Red was sitting at the table when they came back. He explained his delay as S and T-bone stared wide-eyed at him. I don’t think they touched their food. They bolted for the toy store.

EW!!!!! Remind me to never go to our local LJS’s, ‘kay? I never crave that kind of food so I think I’m pretty safe.

So, we met T-bone and his parents at Toys R Us. We let the boys run around and try out all of the Power Wheels vehicles. S and I found two Wall-E shirts in boys’ sizes, not toddler sizes. They didn’t have any in toddler sizes… As a result, Wildman and T-bone looked like they had dresses on 🙂 They didn’t care. They were so happy.

We headed to the movies after purchasing the shirts. The boys got to pick out their own snacks. S and Big Red were still hungry from their lack of dinner so we ended up with an odd assortment of candy, popcorn and sodas. We made our way to the theater and enjoyed a really cute movie. Wall-E was adorable and kept the kids entertained throughout the whole thing. And perhaps the most ironic thing about the movie was Wall-E’s pet cockroach given Big Red’s close encounter of the insect kind… Of course, I had another good laugh at Big Red’s expense 🙂

J and I took Wildman to Barnes and Noble after the movie to pick out a book for himself and Cutie Pie. I don’t know what it is but I’m conditioned to go to a bookstore after seeing a movie. I always do it. A movie date would not be complete without a spin around a book megastore. Wildman picked out this for himself and this for Cutie Pie.

It was a really fun evening that we need to do again real soon. Especially if Big Red supplies more entertaining blog fodder…