Daddio: Date Night!

Tonight Mommio and I went on date night, but first we had to earn it by working our butts off during the day.  So before we left at 4:00 pm, we: (1) reassembled the compost bins and moved some half-composted waste; (2) tilled the outside section of the garden; (3) formed all the rows in the garden and stomped them down; (4) went over school stuff for the kids' first day at Joan's Academy; (5) did our Power House science unit; (6) cleaned the house; (7) caught up on laundry and dishes; (8) fixed the kids' bathroom sink; (9) got homeschool lessons ready; (10) made the kids cut their nails; (11) cut Gabe's hair; (12) updated blog for art lessons; (13) cleaned the pool; (14) fixed the outside plug; (15) made the girls clean their room.

THEN... we got to go on date night.  We decided to go watch a movie at the Bee Cave's Galleria because there are much better restaurants to choose from there.  As you'll read, we came to regret that decision.  So what movie did we watch?  Only the greatest film ever to be released in the past several weeks: Machete!

The movie was great!  Blood, boobs and more blood!  It was everything that we wanted in a movie.  Even Mommio thought it was good.  Her exact quote was, "That was funny.  I thought it was funny."  I wish I could give you a better recommendation from her, but... you know... Mommio's not one for over-the-top reviews.  After the movie, we started our long, unexpected...

QUEST FOR DINNER!

You see, the weird thing about date night this week was that it was on a Saturday night, and we always go on date night on Sunday night.  What we didn't realize about trying to get dinner on a Saturday night is that the restaurants are crowded-- a problem we don't encounter on Sundays.  So anyhow, the place Mommio really wanted to go was Maudie's, an Austin Tex-Mex restaurant we really like and haven't been to since moving to Marble Falls.

There was a problem with Maudie's, though.  There was a 45 minute wait for a table.  Why?

That's right, the UT football game was on and apparently it's a lot of fun to drink at Maudie's and watch the game.  Not wanting to wait 45 minutes, we decided to go to Lowe's and get some things we needed.  This included light bulbs, some bamboo stakes for our crepe myrtle tree and fifty bucks in seeds to plant in the garden.  After shopping at Lowe's... wait... to you read that right?  That's right.  FIFTY BUCKS in seeds.  I know, I know... "But it's much cheaper than the produce it will turn into!"  That's still a big hit for those stupid paper seed envelopes. In any event, after Lowe's we decided to try a new Italian place in the Galleria called Mandola's Italian Market.

This place looked really nice.  It was set up like an Italian Pei Wei-- you order at the counter, they give you a number and bring your food out to you.  There was a problem, however.  Everything on the menu had cheese.  Everything.  Unless I wanted soup, there was nothing for me on this menu.  You may be thinking, "Well what's a little cheese going to do?"  Really?  Are you really asking that?

Yeah- that DRAIN is the reason, okay?  I don't want to talk about it. Okay, so we left Mandola's Italian Kitchen and settled on Waterloo Icehouse.

Waterloo Ice House was pretty good and not crowded at all.  Jen's burger was good and I had a chicken fried chicken sandwich with honey mustard dressing that was AMAZING!  But the best part was that we tried the Fried Mushrooms appetizer.  I know it doesn't sound like much-- breaded button mushrooms that are deep fried-- but they were awesome.  So very, very good.  It was a great meal, and quite affordable.  After eating, we stopped by New Flower Market to get some ingredients to try a Colombian dish recommended for our South American world geography unit this week.

New Flower didn't have some of the ingredients we needed, though, so we just got some soy cream cheese and soy sour cream for me.  Huh?  What?  Why would I want to eat that stuff when it tastes like sawdust?  Don't make me hit you with my drain.

Because I totally will.  And trust me... you won't like it.  So then we went home.  And that was date night, just another adventurous evening in the lives of a married couple getting their once-every-two-weeks alone time.