Table for three

When mommy left for work this morning, Owen grabbed one of the flags she'd patriotically placed around the house and began waving it around happily. Such a wholesome American little man. With Meh working until mid-afternoon, I tried to plan an eventful day with the boys to avoid cabin fever. Thankfully the weather cooperated, with a nice sunny and warm day - finally the Northwest seems to have acknolwedged (if not fully embraced) summer! The boys and I first went to our favorite economy size store (where Owen pointed out balloons, and Zachary noticed a few burnt out overhead lights), and did some speed trials on the way back to the car:

Then we visited a nice local park (where we alternated between strolling, watching a few soccer games [Owen: "Ball! Ball!"], and playing on and around playground equipment. It was getting on towards lunchtime, and friend E is in town visiting, so we rang her to see if she wanted to join us at a local fine dining establishment. She and friends K, J, and their girls N and A were hanging out and agreed to join us. The schedules coordinated, the boys and I played a little bit more (Z crashed a birthday party's reserved picnic shelter to go check out a fun fountain) before heading out to lunch.

Alas, we didn't think to coordinate which instance of this chain restaurant to meet at -- and of course, as we later learned, picked different locations. And to top it off, I'd left my cell phone in the car and wasn't about to drag the boys back outside to retrieve it. So with no way to confirm what I suspected, we waited for twenty minutes (I kept a queue of kids' orders coming) and then decided to just have a nice boys meal together. While Owen tried several times to climb onto the table, both boys had a great time dining out with daddy, and I can happily say that everyone ate something and nobody cried. (I've had less success than that with some home meals!)