Well, I hate to admit it, but the movie just ain't that great. :) Durnit. So, one point for the guys on this one. But the one who said John Cusack wasn't cut out for this kind of movie must have missed Serendipity. I loved that movie!
We had a super-dee-dooper evening out anyway. After the mediocre experience at the movie theater, we went to eat at Simply Fondue. THAT was fun. I'm not sure we've ever been that full. We did the whole four course meal. The guy who was our waiter (and never quite looked us in the eye) brought us yummy salads, and then made our appetizer--Cheddar cheese fondue with chunks of dry bread, veggies, and apples to dip in it--right at our table.
When we were done gorging ourselves on the cheese stuff (every drop) and were already full, he brought the HOT POT! (which is what they yelled when they walked around corners carrying them) to our table. We had ordered chicken and steak and veggies. We got lots of chicken and steak and veggies. He showed us how to drop the red potatoes in the pot without the fork and said they would pop back up when they were done. Sure enough, they did. He then taught us how to stuff the mushrooms with the cream cheese and other things and dip them in batter and fry those puppies. Before walking away, he kindly advised us to dip all meats in batter before cooking them...if we found that we preferred them without the batter, we were to carefully avoid burning ourselves when the flames shot up from fonduing bare meat. Yummy stuff. Of the four sauces available for dipping, I liked (surprise!) the sweet 'n sour sauce the best. Todd thought the horseradish stuff rocked. The teriyaki and honey mustard were somewhere in the middle.
So, there we were after about an hour of that, full and groaning audibly. But wait! The best was yet to come. For dessert, we selected the (surprise again!) dark chocolate fondue. That was heavenly. It was "pre-heated" so there were no theatrics for this course. OH, but wait! When the guy who wouldn't look at us lit the pot, he recommended that if we wanted our marshmallows roasted, now was the time, because the blue flames rising from the yummy dark chocolate would burn out pretty quickly. He was right. The flames dissipated before the marshmallows even got soft, but we figured out that if you dipped them in the chocolate and let them sit on your plate for a minute, they got nice and gooey. Along with the strawberries, bananas, more apples, and sponge cake squares, this was the crowning finish.
The only thing that saved us from going home and dying of heart attacks immediately was exercise! Fortunately, there is a Half Price Books at a right angle to Simply Fondue, and we managed to drag ourselves and ten pounds or so of really good food over there. They were having the dollar sidewalk sale and I managed to not only dig up ten books from the racks, but also convince the manager that the other two books I found were worth the same price because they were the same size and by the same author! He actually went for it. I was quite proud of myself. Todd found one book for himself (I love men who read!), a Five Iron Frenzy cd for $2.99 that Ryan had somehow managed not to buy yet (that is a miracle in itself, if you know Ryan and his FIF obsession). We found a Mary Kate and Ashley video for the girls for a dollar (and knew it wouldn't matter that they've seen it at least 345 times), and boom, $26.00 later, we closed down the store. Is it any wonder that my son is such a good shopper at Goodwill? We'd obviously rather spend our money on movies and food than clothing and books that are perfectly good used! I think it must be genetic. I've never seen my dad quite as proud as the thirty minutes we all spent together at Goodwill in Moscow, Idaho last December. I'll have to dig up the group shot outside the store and post it sometime.
So, all in all, it was a really fun evening celebrating the third anniversary of our first date! It isn't officially until August third, but considering that's a work night and also church finance team meeting for Todd, we thought we'd celebrate early!
Oh, that picture at the top? That's the guy who introduced us three years ago! Here's thanks going out to Rhett Miller and the Old 97s.
