a happy saturday night

We had different plans for our Saturday night involving a babysitter, but being as this is Fall Break for all the schools in town, we were just unable to find a sitter. That's ok though, we just had a family date, and those are always fun. =)

First though, I made these little guys. Aren't they cute? Just mini pumpkins and ribbon. =) I saw them somewhere, can't remember where, and just had to try them.

Also, Danny had been working on my garden all week, and I'm very excited about it! When we were in California over the 4th of July, Dan's Grandpa had shown us his garden boxes he'd made, so he wouldn't have to stoop over in order to work on his plants.

I thought it was a fabulous idea. But it involved Danny building the boxes for me (lots of work) and bringing in dirt. A LOT of dirt! We have the first one finished and I have planted carrots and zucchini, and the second one should be done this morning where I will plant green onions and either tomato seeds or tomato plants. I haven't decided yet. I've never had much luck with tomatoes, but we're planting on a different side of the house this year with a lot more shade and a different sun pattern, so I'm very hopeful.

Anyway, after hours of him working on the garden (and his shed, too) we cleaned up and went out to Denny's for some din-din, cuz Kids Eat Free on Saturday nights there. We sat down at approximately 5:15. We got our food at approximately 6:45. That's quite a long time to wait. . . for Denny's food. But the reason was, they'd had 2 chefs quit that night right at the rush and they were scrambling. It was peak feeding time, and fortunately there weren't many kids there (us and one or two other families), but for the most part, the place was filled of senior citizens.

We kept the kids busy coloring and we were taking pictures and it was a cool night so we were all drinking cocoa. For the most part, we were keeping them pretty well contained and entertained. The food came and we immediately noticed we were missing: 3 sets of silverware, sides for everyone, ketchup, the extra side of gravy for Danny, and refills on most of us. We patiently asked for these things, knowing that they were doing the best they could. After about 15-20 minutes, we got all we asked for, except for the refills.

The interesting thing was, with all the things we were missing, and with the age of our party, we were still relatively OK with everything, and patient. The tables around us were not. The couple immediately to the right of us wasn't that bad, and we talked with them about our former experience at this Denny's (we'd been there once before and the service was fine; this was their first time). But the party directly behind us, which consisted of 3 or 4 older people were rediculously rude. They were really giving it to the waitress (like it was her fault??) and talking about her and the service behind her back. I was annoyed by them, felt sorry for her, and could not believe the immaturity they were expressing by their negative experience.

Hello! 2 chefs short? It's amazing they didn't shut the restaurant down for the night! Yes, it did take a long time, and the couple beside us ended up leaving with no charge for the food that never came after a while. The couple behind us was also comped their meal. We paid for ours. I guess the squeaky wheel gets the grease, huh? I just sighed at their immaturity and was proud of my little family for dealing with the situation as best as we could.

We then went to the Golden Spoon which is a frozen yogurt place (yes, it was a cool night and we were already chilly) but they were celebrating their month anniversary and giving our free frozen yogurt all day to draw people in. So we went, saw several people we knew, and really enjoyed our experience there. The staff was super friendly and the prices are much better than Cold Stone Creamery (about half) and they have a smaller than 'small' size that is much more appropriate for kids. We all got the 'small' size, the one they were giving away for free, but all of us brought home around half of it as it was just too much. We'll definitely go back.

We got home and got out all our sleeping bags and 'slept' on the trampoline. Well, that was the idea. We got warm and snuggly at first, but about halfway thru the night we were all freezing! (who knew? We used to camp in the pines in Oct, Nov, even Dec and we weren't able to last this one night, lol!) So we all came into the house before sunrise. But it was still so fun.

A great family date!