Mark has some Fridays off, so he had been planning on taking the boys to their field trip at the Microsoft store, an hour away, in Salem. I realized we could make a date out of it if I went with them, so I did. Mark and I walked around the mall a bit, bought Log some shirts, and then sat and had apps at Red Robin. Before we left the mall, Mark had to run back to Red Robin, when he realized that his credit card was missing! He had left it there! Luckily, they had it waiting, in a safe. Phew!
By the time we got home, we only had about an hour and a half before we had to rush back out to take the older two to a youth group event at a friend's church, which was 40 minutes away. So we walked the dog and quickly made french toast for the boys, and rushed back out.
It was foggy and had started to rain, so the drive there wasn't fantastic. We got to the church a bit before 6, and sat in the lot looking around for anyone we recognized. We quickly realized that something wasn't right, because nobody else was around and the lot was empty! The rain was coming down in big, cold, fat, drops. I double checked my email and, yup, oops, the event was not from 6-8. It was from 7-10!!! Oh dear.
We figured instead of sitting in the van trying to figure things out, that we would walk in the rain over to Margaritas restaurant, which was practically next door. The number of people outside told us what was confirmed- at least an hour wait for a table. We didn't want to stand outside to wait for a raw, damp hour, and didn't know of anything else to do in the area. Also, Mark and I had originally planned on a dinner date with our youngest, while the other two were at the event...but we did not know what we could do with him for four more hours. We were already tired from the day. We stood around, trying to decide if we should just cancel and head back home. All of us were in favor of that, other than my middle son who was really disappointed! Sigh.
So we headed back to the van, which we had moved to a parking garage, and tried to get warm while figuring things out. We decided to drop the middle boy off, drive the 40 minutes back home so the other two could relax and get to bed early, and then one of us would drive back to get the middle son for 10:00.
Ahhh, that seemed like a lot of driving, and the fog was thick, so...nah, we decided not to do that. Ok, at this point it was around 6:30, so Mark and I were in a silly mood. We decided to just wait and stay, since at least one boy really wanted to. Mark decided to call the restaurant to have our name put in- we would still take the youngest out to eat. Imagine how much we giggled when he was put on hold...waited...waited...and then was hung up on.
TWICE!
He decided to go put our names in, in person, when he went to walk over to drop the boys off.
Okay. So, I waited in the warm van with the youngest, while he dropped the boys off and put our name in, and I saw him walking back to the van. I unlocked it for him, and- the alarm started going off! Very echoey in the parking garage. Ha!
We waited a few more minutes before walking over- the wait for dinner was now only "30 minutes"- and walked back over to be called to a table.
One.hour.later.
We finally got to get in and get out of the raw night...
We were slap-happy at this point, and Mark and I were very hungry. So we ate and goofed off with the Wiki sticks that were given to C with his menu.
The service was quick and we were already done around 8:40.
Back to the parking garage we went, where the three of us sat in the van until it was time to get the boys, at 10pm. Mark and I occupied ourselves with funny YouTube videos, and the kiddo played on a gadget.
We had a slow ride home in crazy, thick fog, and were home before 11. The boys were wired, but Mark and I were so tired that we told them to put themselves to bed...my poor husband was snoring before his head had even hit the pillow. We are getting old, and days that are not a smooth operation wear us out! Glad to have chuckled our way through most of our weird Friday.
