Tad and I realized last week that we had not had any time together, out in the world, without children in ages. Our last two date nights were doing activities with other people and they were both in December.
Lucky for us, even though both sets of grandparents are on vacation, we had another option. We have our neighbors with whom we do a babysitting swap. I called them up and voilla! We had a babysitter.
We looked through all the dinner coupons we had: 1 free entree at an Indian restaurant with the purchase of another entree and 2 drinks, one free entree at a very expensive east side Italian place, and $20 off at McCormick and Schmicks from one of Tad's teachers at school. We decided on the last place, as one of our other neighbors is a chef there. I called up his wife to see if he would be working and if we could say 'hi' to him and she said she'd make us a reservation!
We got there at 8:00, children safely tucked in bed. We were greeted at the door by our neighbor and taken to a lovely booth with curtains. On the menu was pre-printed:
WELCOME ALIE AND TAD!!!!!!!
Knowing neither of us drink, he presented us with strawberry mint spritzers, which were delicious. We ordered a crab stack appetizers with avocado, mango, greens and a sauce drizzled on. Then we were brought sourdough bread. Tad and I ordered cashew crusted tilapia with sweet potato hash and battered fried peppers and a side of butternut squash orzo. It was brought to the table split for us and presented beautifully. I ordered creme brulee for dessert (my favorite) but our neighbor came out himself with a long white platter containing two cups of chocolat, a brownie with ice cream and bananas foster sauce, a chocolate mousse cake AND creme brulee. Needless to say, we brought lots home. At the end of our meal, Tad and I were sitting back and happily full. We had gotten to talk, uninterrupted by children, and hold hands and reconnect. Our server came back with the bill, placing it on the table and saying, "It's taken care of."
We smiled at each other in disbelief. We both gave our neighbor a hug before we left and went home to relieve our other neighbor, taking care of our children.
Date night: brought to you by two wonderful people in the 55th street neighborhood.
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