Date Night!

We've had a great visit with my sisters Liz and Jessie. Liz is getting married in April, so we all went with my mom to help her pick out a wedding dress. It only took about 3 hours and I think maybe even less than 10 dresses to find the one perfect for her. Of course I'd share the photo, but then we run the risk of her fiance seeing it. Can't have that!

Last night, Tom and I went out on a lovely date. WE ate at a Mexican Restaurant we'd never tried, or heard of for that matter. And it was great! It was a little place called El gran Rodeo, and we'll definitely be going back. I even took photos of the lunch menu to have our lunch group see if they'd like to add this place to their rotation.

After dinner, we thought about going to a movie, but there isn't really anything we wanted to see. So we'd talked about me needing a coat for my upcoming business trip to Chicago at the end of the month (and I am going to need a coat!) and decided to check out Lane Bryant. I called them and they had a grey peacoat in my size, so we went to check it out. It was pretty, but obviously more of a fashion coat, not really a "keep you warm in a Chicago January" kind of coat.

The girl there recommended a few other options, and one was this K&G place right next door. I'd never heard of it, but turns out it is a lot like a TJ Maxx or a Ross, where they have a lot of discounted clothes and other stuff. There really wasn't anything my size in the women's jackets (although they had a lot!) so we decided to check the men's side. And I found the perfect jacket! It's wool and warm, and has a built in fleece liner and hood, lots of pockets, and the liner zips closed then the wool overcoat buttons. And it fits! That was imperative. I think I'll be warm enough in that. AND it was ony 40$ on clearance. SCORE! Oh, and it's grey with a black liner and will match my typical business travel wardrobe and boots. Sweet. We also picked up lined gloves for both Tom and I. All that for just about 60$. My dad had sent us $ for Christmas, so Thanks for the coat and gloves Dad!

By this time it was 9pm and we wanted to stay out a bit longer (we don't often have a babysitter to watch the kids, much less THREE of them!) so we headed over to Barnes and Nobles. I've had a 25$ gift card for there for a few years from a birthday at some point. We also wanted to look for things for the kids from my dad. Tom got a really nice puzzle of the painting The Last Supper. It's been a long time since Tom and I worked on something so unplugged. That should be fun.

For Nicky we picked up a memory game that is all photos of puppies (he LOVES puppies) and a phonics Brain Quest thing where he can use a dry erase marker to fill in the missing letters of words. I think this will be a lot more fun for him than writing full words all the time, and will focus in on beginning, ending and vowel sounds better too. We have to keep things fun by alternating his writing homework with "games" like this and I think this is going to be fun. Thanks Dad for Nicky's games!

That still leaves 20$ for the girls to get a little something from Dad, so we'll do a little shopping today, probably for some cute, warm clothes.

So all in all, a lovely date and we only had to shell out our money for dinner! Sweet!

Liz and Jessie will be leaving today, but Grammie is staying till next weekend when we fly her back to Florida. Poor Grammie is freezing up here because, being from Florida, she doesn't really have VA winter clothes. But we'll keep her covered up in babies to help her keep warm. They're good for that.