Valentine "family" date

days before the big "hearts" day, Mitch and I were contemplating on what we were going to do to celebrate. We've made a decision a few years back that we won't have dinner that night cause we don't want to be amidst all the crowd. Not that we don't like crowds, we just know that restaurants will be more pack therefore harder to get seated fast and if we wanted to watch a movie, the pack crowd will turn us off too.

We usually celebrate the day before or after but since those days won't work we settled for Saturday morning. A friend gave me the idea of a "breakfast" date. I liked it and decided that the whole family should go on this date. This way we don't have to find a babysitter and we can have some much needed bonding time since that's hard to find nowadays with our schedules.

So the plan was made- breakfast at IHOP. I have a coupon so we thought it was a good idea. While passing by the Norwalk Cheap theater, I saw that they had Madagascar 2 showing so that was added in the plan to. After breakfast we were going to see the movie. Everything sounded so good in our heads. Even when I told Marcus the plan, he got all excited.

Then Saturday came.....

We went to Ihop. I got the stuffed french toast. yum, yum, yum!!! And took these photos.....





Marcus took this one of me and Mitch. Another budding photographer in the family.


The kids' faces lit up when they saw their fun food!

So we all enjoyed our breakfast and when it was time to pay, I busted out my coupon and the waiter sadly said that they can't honor the coupon. I guess I forgot to read the fine print. Darn those fine print! After a sigh of disappointment we paid the $38 (including tip) that we owe. Mitch and I was inshock at our bill. Imagine for a family of four (2 being very small children) we can spend that much in one meal. I guess that's why we don't eat out that much.

So just a little setback, I say to myself..... I was even amused at the car when Marcus busted out his toy camera and started shooting at Maddie and me. Very cute!


Since it was still early for the movies, we headed to costco to pick up a sensor light. Again we had a coupon! Yep, that's part of my life now- coupons and I love it.


So after running a few errands to pass the time, we headed to the theater. I go out and look at the movie times and guess what------- no Madagascar 2. I didn't realized it was already out on DVD therefore it's not going to be in the theaters anymore. Aarrggghh, what happened to me? I didn't make sure all the details were squared! So we went home. Kids were sad. But I told them we'll watch Bolt that afternoon. The first screening, I said. Got home, Mith did yardwork, I went on the computer, kids played with neighbors and before we knew it, we've missed the first screening.

By this time, nobody was in the mood to watch a movie. Everybody was occupied with a different thing. After Mitch got done with his tasks, he just went to the video rental place and got Madagascar 2. So that night, we watched it at home.

I guess not everything was lost. We did get our breakfast date done, eventhough more expensive that what we've anticipated and we did get to watch the movie, just not in the "big tv" like Maddie had hoped for.

So there you have it, hope you all had a great Valentines day. Hopefully more "romantic" and better planned than mine.

till next time,
Grace