Birthday Dinner

Trains, trains, and more trains. When you have two little boys, and you have visitors who are also little boys, trains come very high on the priority list. As in, who was playing with which train, who knocked over whose train (usually Sammy AKA King Kong), which track is the best, which TRAIN is the best (always the one someone else is playing with), who needs to move their train to make way for someone else's train, who stole someone else's train (King Kong) and on and on and on.

Well, Mike and I were offered a break from the "train-talk" for an evening, and it was wonderful! Bonnie and Caleb invited us out for dinner ***without*** the boys, and we had an awesome kid-free time at the Cheesecake Factory. Now, anyone who has ever been to the Cheesecake Factory knows that the food there is absolutely delicious. I have ordered their Orange Chicken a few times, and it has always been superb... just the right blend of sweet, tangy, crispy chicken bites mixed with carrots, squash and

Okay, I have been interrupted about 12 times since I have started writing this post, so if this is not flowing smoothly, you'll understand why. I hope.

so... carrots, squash and those chinese peas... what are they called? My coffee hasn't kicked in yet. And a big scoop of white rice that is so pretty next to all of the colors of the chicken and veggies. Everyone else's food looked wonderful, too. Mike got the Spicy Cashew Chicken, and it looked and smelled SO good. He asked for extra of the sauce they had made it with, and the waitress was happy to bring that out for him. Bonnie got a *small* Chicken Caesar Salad, which was the biggest *small* salad I have ever seen. Her plate was piled high with fresh, crisp greens covered in a tangy, creamy Caesar dressing, with pieces of grilled chicken surrounding the salad. And Caleb's meal... well, let's just say that I will be ordering this next time I go to Cheesecake Factory. He got the Chicken and Biscuits. It looked like something out of a magazine. Chunky vegetables in a creamy sauce with several biscuits surrounding them, and a mound of mashed potatoes with a biscuit next to it also covered in the sauce. Oh. My. Goodness. It looked like heaven on a plate.

So yeah, that's my next meal to "conquer" there. Or, as the guys were saying, the meals conquered us because no one was able to finish their food. We don't go there very much (you get what you pay for at this place) but I will definitely be looking forward to a future visit.

We got presents from Bonnie and Caleb, too, along with having our meal paid for and a kid-free night out! We'll definitely have to do that more often. hahahaha

Since Bonnie is due to have her baby in exactly three weeks from today (yay!!!), it was kind of a "final fling" for us and for them. Because you can get a babysitter so that you can go out to dinner after you have a child, but your time is not your own anymore, so you feel pressure to get home to take care of them. As if the babysitter wasn't doing a perfectly fine job. When we went to pick up the boys last night from their friend's house, we had to drag them practically kicking and screaming out the door. Because he has lots of trains.

It is lunchtime. Sammy has asked me nine times for cereal within the last 5 minutes, so I think I'll go feed my children. We won't be having cereal, but the little bean and cheese burritos in blue and red tortillas will make them happy.