Dining Out

Last Sunday, prior to the Princess Birthday Party, Michele took the kids out to breakfast at IHOP in an effort to get the kids out of the house so we could clean and prepare. A wonderful thing, for sure. She ended up having a great time with the kiddos - they were all on their best behavior and had fun eating whip cream and playing the puzzle games at the table. As it turned out, their orders were inadvertantly misplaced, so Michele ended up paying nothing for all of the meals - what a deal! And, for Michele, what a fun, random, holiday memory......





As for our other dining experience, last night, the kids and us went to Green Valley Rehabilitation Center's Holiday Family Dinner. John's dad, Pat, lives there, and when we received the invitation, it was something we felt we ought to attend. I will give props to the center's effort in creating a very festive environment, complete with Santa Claus and "Dollar Tree" wrapped presents given to the kids. There were a lot of teenage kids helping out, so I suspect there was a service project that was also involved. There was a guest harpist, nicely decorated tables, and a major attempt made at serving a meal that was above par - honey ham and prime rib. Pat especially liked the prime rib, he kept commenting that it's the best food he's had in years.

I was proud of the kids - it was a bit of an uncomfortable experience, but they didn't seemed phased (other than their dislike of the food and fear of the very loud sounds of the man with lung issues in the other room). A man named Bob joined us, who is friends with Pat. He told us a bit about his very hard life. Throw in a few comments from Pat about feeling abandoned by the family and we'll just say conversation wasn't the highlight of the evening.