Dinner Celebration, School is IN!

After a particularly LONG summer my kids finally are going back to school! Hooray!!  In Alabama they got out of school the end of May, but school here doesn't start until tomorrow, making a very, VERY long summer!  It was fine the beginning of the summer, with family and the move we were pretty busy.  But once we got here and got settled it feels like everything just s l o w e d down.  Even though we have made wonderful friends that have included us on some fun summer fair, the time at home just seemed to wear on the kids.  They became more whiny, more lazy and have fought more than ever before.  Hopefully with school in session they won't be at each others throats all the time!

I really wanted to celebrate this moment of returning to structure and goals by having a back to school dinner.  I had high hopes this year that I was going to make a beautiful going back to school dinner, with THIS as my inspiration.  Fancy drinks, fancy decorations, maybe even al fresco...but Red Robin is what ended up happening.  Of course the kids don't mind, since moving here they have really found the Red Robin love and because they didn't know about my failed plans they really thought this was a treat.  I was just hoping to make it a little more special, more symbolic.  Instead it ended up with a last minute rush to the store for last minute school supplies. 



What was particularly 'fun' about this 'special' occasion was the drama in getting the right kind of table.  When they first seated us we were right in between two families with 4 kids each.  They had these nice roomy tables with spacious benches.  We were elbow to elbow, so I asked the waitress if there was another table where we could spread out a bit.  She was super nice and tried to accommodate us by putting two tables together.  I thought we had plenty of room, but unfortunately the kids kept pushing the tables back and forth and I was afraid that the table would pinch Miriam's arm since she sat by the seam where the two tables met.  Then one of the families left and I asked the waitress if we could move again to the bigger cozier table.  Once we got settled and we started to actually enjoy our evening Hannah knocks over her cup spilling water all over and into my lap. 


I was hoping for something a little more magical...oh well...there are WAY too many mosquitoes here to eat outside anyway.