Just a day, just us

Days like yesterday make me miss it being just us. As we were driving along and I mentioned this to the trusty husband he responded with, “yeah, but you miss the boy and as soon as we get home you are going to smooch all over him.” He was right. And I did.

Per usual, the trusty in-laws were late, but not for lack of trying to get her on time. The trusty father in-law forgot his wallet and they had to turn around. For what good would a grandfather be without his wallet.

We finally left made a pit stop at the bank and the burger joint behind the bank. I can haz cheez burger. Of course we got stuck in Seattle traffic which was oh so fun. We made it to Woodinville HS only to park in the toolies. Hiked our happy asses to the shuttle rickety old school bus and took off on a 15 minute ride further into the toolies thus qualifying it as BFE.

I had to listen to my cheap Swede husband bitch that it cost $18 per person to get into the Street of Dreams. But it wouldn’t be the trusty husband if he didn’t complain about how much it cost to get into something. It took us exactly one hour to “tour” the homes with 400,000 of our fellow northwesterners. And what did I learn from this experience?

1. The Street of Dreams is definitely not a kid friendly place. So glad we didn’t take the boy.
2. $2.9 million only gets you 3 bedrooms and the bedrooms in my 1400 sq. ft. house are larger. And you can still hear your neighbor fart.
3. Never go into the porta-pooer a very large man with a magazine recently vacated.

The schedule for the day included a movie at the theater back in Tacoma. Unfortunately, we didn’t anticipate such heavy traffic and a 20 minute bus ride into BFE. So we thought we’d check out what was playing at Redmond Town Center. However, it wouldn’t be an Elle and trusty husband excursion if we didn’t deviate from the original plan. On the way to the theater we passed about 5 wineries. Columbia being one of my favorites. I’d never been to Woodinville wine country so we opted for wine tasting instead of Bourne. Here is what I learned from that experience.

1. Visiting a winery on a whim is just about the coolest thing anyone can do.
2. It is also not advisable to bring your 2 year old with you to such event.
3. Go when it is really really busy, find the most scattered pourer and step on up.
4. Make sure to find the wines on the tasting list that are the same blend, but from different valleys. I asked for Otis Cab and the scattered guy poured Red Willow Cab. He gave me the taste on the house. I got 6 tastes for $5 instead of 5.
5. There are a whole lot of super snooty wine people.

After we drank our way into relaxed happiness we made a stop at Bell Square. I had a need to visit the Crate. I’m in search of a Texas Muffin Tin. Sadly, the Crate let me down. But I still walked out with a little soy pot, a $10 rubber spatula and a chocolate fondue pot. “Because we have chocolate fondue so often,” the trusty husband informed me. That’s because we don’t have a chocolate fondue pot. No trip to Bell Square would be complete without a trip to the Apple store. I was torn and did cry a little because the Apple store is about 100 feet from the Nordstrom shoe department. The trusty husband threw himself between me and the shoes. And, AND! if I’d had just a little more time I think I could have swindled my way into an iMac.

Dinner reservations were at 7:00 back in Tacoma so we had to fight traffic to come back. We dined at a little place called Over the Moon Cafe. We had dinner there with NEAL and Tacoma Chickadee on Dine out for Life night. I was sick and couldn’t taste the food so I ordered the same thing. On texture it was not as good as I remember. Still a delightful evening. I was stunned at the lack of patronage on a Saturday night. In the Proctor District you would have to make a reservation 3-4 nights in advance for Saturday night. Not at Over the Moon. Sad. This is a great little restaurant and it should be packed. Come on Tacoma! Get it together.

We arrived home to hear our son wailing that Daddy was the one to give him his bath. My poor frazzled trusty Mother-in-law was trying to comfort him as best she could. Of course today the boy is pissed at us for leaving him most of the day. He’s going to love it when we load him into the car and drive him down to a family reunion where none of these family members have met him yet. Fun times!

So our anniversary celebration went well. We had a good time, but missed the boy terribly. He spent the time playing with his grandfather’s new car and we were convinced he would have his learners permit by the time we got home. Pretty darn close. They wore him out so bad that he actually fell asleep during dinner. Way to go Grammy, Papa & Auntie G!