Some Time Together / Josh Arrives With Gifts

Occasionally, with two kids, Chrissy and I experience an absence of quality time together. Basically, going out to eat together is like Christmas to us! Today, my parents offered to take the kids, and Chrissy and I experienced a blissful couple of hours at East Side Mario's.

East Side Mario's, by the way, has a full gluten-free menu now, not just a paper print-out but a fully laminated, colour menu! These kinds of things really move me emotionally. Chrissy order the Seafood Linguini, and I had the Chicken Amatriciana. We had planned to take pictures of our beautiful food, but upon seeing our orders arrive we forgot all about photographs and dug in.

It was really good! I still have some left - a fact that warms my heart as I type this.

Chrissy and I figure we need to have two really good "moments" of quality time together each week to stay healthy, and so today was much appreciated and really good for us. Here we are enjoying our post-meal lollipops outside of East Side Mario's.

After supper, we picked up the kids and headed over to Grammie and Grand Pere's house to see Chrissy's brother Josh, who had just arrived from Toronto to spend a week with the Smith fam. Much to our surprise and delight, Josh brought presents! For Chrissy's birthday he gave her the next season of Friday Night Lights, which she and I will greatly enjoy over the next few months.

For Jesse, he bought the nicest puzzle Jesse has yet seen - a big, fifty-piece puzzle of the map of Canada. Here he is opening it up!

Jesse thanked Josh with an enthusiastic high five.

At this point, it became necessary to distract Janna from the puzzle by taking many pictures of her. Here she is!

Janna has been having a bit of a hard week, with many ups and downs. Here, she is clearly not enjoying the family pictures.

Here, however, she is having the time of her life. What has changed? Well, she is giving Grand-Pere a huge  pinch, which seems to bring her great joy.

Josh, meanwhile, lovingly watches over Jesse as he labours on his new puzzle.

It took him about forty-five minutes, but he completed it with a little help from his friends. He did it again before bed tonight!

That's it for tonight! Dad and I are off to see The Bourne Legacy. I am ridiculously excited. I'll give you my impressions tomorrow.

Until next time!