Tag: date night

Food and love

I was looking through our kitchen window out onto the vineyards last night as the sun was setting and I had this feeling that took me a minute to realize was contentment.

We had a near-perfect weekend.  Not too busy, not too quiet, filled with all kinds of awesomeness and that ended with a long walk with the kids in the vineyards.  I even baked some cookies* which I ended up eating too many of.

Date night was really lovely, I can highly recommend Our Place, all the food that passed our table looked beautiful and they accommodated all my requests (no fries, no oil, no dressing.  Boring, I know) and still made my food look and taste delicious.  The company wasn’t too bad either.

On Saturday morning, after an epic Google Maps fail (hint: the wine farm is not situated in the middle of Wellington, but on the outskirts), we eventually ended up at Napier Winery and it was well worth the trip, I could have spent a LOT of money there.  As we left I asked about a place in the area to have lunch and they very kindly pointed us in the direction of Under Oaks.  Lovely big lawn, jungle gym, horses, the kids had a ball and they even posed for pictures, which is almost unheard of.  Of course the wine is also lovely.  Lunch for all of us also came in at about R250, which is a huge bargain in my books.  We’ll be going back there, en masse.

On Saturday night Daniel spent the night with my In-laws and I think the undivided attention was just what he needed.  The girls also had a chance to just do their own thing, just what they needed as well. It made us come up with a plan, but more about this later.  The only downside was that Daniel came home yesterday when we had all the parentals over for Sunday lunch, waving the front page of Die Burger depicting the epic battle between the Sharks and the Stormers and we all know how that ended.  We strongly suspect he was coached as my FIL is a Bulls Supporter.  I could literally see Etienne flinch every time Daniel reminded him that the Stormers lost and he reminded him very very often.

* I had some choc chips left over from Daniel’s birthday recently and baked these cookies.  I then felt like trying some white choc and cranberry cookies and as per usual the internet obliged.  If you like chewy cookies try the first recipe, if you like harder cookies use the second recipe.  I’m all for chewy, so next time I’m going to make the first recipe and just replace that dark choc chips with the cranberries and white choc chips. The combination is To Die For, the sweetness of the chocolate combined with the tartness of dried cranberries.  You’re welcome.

PS:  I accused Etienne of being a stubborn, chest-thumping Neanderthal yesterday as he refused to let my Dad help him carve the chicken so we could get the rest of lunch on the table with the least amount of chaos.  He maintains it is “his job”.  Whatever.  Is it the same in your homes?

PPS: Next thing I’m going to try is Oven-Dried Apples, they look delish and healthy for lunchbox snack for the kids.

Date night

Just a quick pop-in.

Tonight is Date Night and I can’t wait! I remembered halfway through the week that I had promised Megan more hours before the end of July and voila! Impromptu Date Night.

Of course I tweeted asking for recommendations for places to go in Durbanville as I couldn’t be arsed to drive far and the 2 most attractive were Cassia (love them!) and Our Place (thanks Lindsey!) where we are going tonight. By all accounts they are lovely. I just hope they can put up with my dietary crap.

A friend also recently introduced me to Cathy’s site, PaperPeony and I fell in love. Check out her washi tape, I have ordered mine and I’m waiting for the next birthday so I can get a-wrapping! I used to have a thing for stationery and calligraphy, but since the kids it really hasn’t been anything more than the odd half-hearted attempt, so this is really exciting. Please pop over and have a look?

Then, we watched a Ted Talk at work today and I’m in the process of having an epiphany. Watch this space, it’s HUGE.

I’m dragging Etienne and the kids off to Wellington tomorrow for this:

What are you all doing for the weekend?

Party Harty

Dear friends of ours are out from Ireland and they took us out to a lovely, lovely supper last night.

Those of you that have kids will know that there’s some juggling of schedules and arrangement of babysitters required to have a simple night out.  Up to now Etienne and I have had the odd date-night where we quietly slip out the door at 8pm when the kids are meant to be settling in for the night, but only after the whole dinner and bath routine is done.  Because with 3 of them you can’t just have a single person taking care of them, you need a couple of pairs of hands at the best of times.

Not that they are difficult or anything, I mean our children are after all the most beautiful and clever and well behaved children EVER.  They just talk so very very very much.  Non-stop.  But I digress.

Last nights’ arrangement was early pre-dinner drinks at their swanky CBD apartment followed be supper at Societi Bistro which meant we had to leave by 5pm.

I felt a little guilty and very thrilled at the same time to be missing out on the whole night-time routine, but it was so worth it.  I did catch myself trying not to have TOO good a time – how weird is that?

Why am I telling you all this? Well, we have tickets to the U2 concert on 18 February and are considering staying over in town and gaspshockhorror it would be the first night we would ever spend away from all our children in almost 3 years.

We have some options, but I would like to know what your thoughts are:

1.  Divide them up and send Daniel to one set of Grandparents and Mignon and Isabel to the other (sending all 3 children to one set of Grandparents is not an option)

or

2.  Get our FABULOUS babysitter to stay over with the children in our house.  She is also a teacher at their school, so they know her very well and are all completely in love with her.  She would be more than capable to take care of them.

We really need a night away from our children, much as we love them.  We need to have a lie-in lazy morning with no-one jumping on us at 6h30.  Not that we’d be able to sleep late, we’d probably be ready to leave at 7am we’d miss them so much, but hey.

What do you think?

ps: Go and have a meal at Societi Bistro, they are lovely and the food was great.  Our waitress even helped us find our friend’s wedding ring that flew off his finger, out the window and into the bushes outside.  Hilarious!

pps:  The nominated party theme of the day is Ariel 3.  I shit you not.  I suspect my children are in for a nasty surprise come birthday time…

ppps:  No, I’m not handing out the number of our babysitter.  She’s MINE.