Monday, February 7, 2011

Date Night

What's that old saying? A picture is worth a thousand words...

Needless to say, we had a blast on our date night this past weekend. Super fun! But before that....Ryan and I had a busy Saturday leading up to date night. I spent the morning and early afternoon at our Stake Relief Society Women's Conference, which was fantastic as always, while Ryan manned the troops and transported them to all things sporty: Afton softball tryouts at 8:00, Barrett softball tryouts at 9:00, then quick intermission to bring Barrett to the conference and sneak in an errand or two before Afton's basketball game at noon. I am so grateful to have such a hands-on and amazing husband. I would never want to do this without him.

I loved the general session where Sister Holyoak and Sister Walters spoke, along with President Ahlstrom. They were all so good! The theme was "Choose Faith: Don't be Afraid to Get out of the Boat." The cultural hall was set up for come-and-go buffet style brunch all day, and everything was decorated with a nautical theme, including centerpieces with live fish. Very clever.

My "Parenting: Sink or Swim" class was fun. I taught two sessions at the conference (I thought the second one went a little better than the first, but I guess that's to be expected) and had a lot of really nice positive feedback from some of the terrific ladies that attended. I was in good company on Saturday, that's for sure. There's something pretty special about being among so many good women, all striving to be better, all trying to walk on the straight path. Clearly, the teacher benefits more than the students ever could due to all the time, study and preparation that goes into preparing, so I felt really blessed to be able to accept that assignment. A little nervous, sure. Humbled - absolutely. But really, really grateful. Being a mom is my #1 job, and raising our four fantastic kiddos is on my mind pretty much full time. I hope we are doing some things right amidst all the things I know we could be doing better.

My adorable friend, Jane, who used to be in our ward but who moved about a mile away into another stake a couple of years ago, asked if I would share a summary of my class, so I may post about it soon.

Anyway, after the conference and after all the kid stuff was done, Ryan and I got in some Saturday afternoon fitness (he biked and I ran), then got ready for a much-needed date night. We finally got ourselves over to Spinatto's - this little Italian food joint in Tempe we've heard much about and that we've been talking about trying out for months. The food did not disappoint! The ambiance was so-so as we were tucked into this corner in a very small-ish table, a little too close to a table of cute double-dating seniors (we could hear every word of their conversation), but the food was super tasty. And the company sitting across from me couldn't have been any better :)

After dinner, we headed over to Bass Pro Shop for a little shopping and browsing. I love that store. Seriously, it is just so cool. In the camping section, we ran into this guy...

and I just couldn't resist taking a picture. I was tempted to scale up one of the walls to get a photo op with the buffalo, but I didn't think the Bass Pro guys would be too thrilled about that.

Ryan scored with his new tent heater and hand warmers (he's taking the scouts on an overnight in two weeks so he's preparing for the chilly night.) After two years as scout master and another who knows how many years to go, we figured it was time to invest in the heater. We'd like him to keep all his digits in tact.

After a fun stroll through Bass, we went and picked out a movie at Blockbuster, ran a couple of errands and headed back to tuck in the peeps before watching our flick together.

Great day. Great date. Looking foward to another good week!

2 comments:

  1. What a cute picture of you and the bear. Spinattos is good, but it is better with a group so you aren't worried about the ambience. I think it is funny how it is BYOB. That place is a people watcher place for sure.

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  2. I heard how great your class was. I would love a summary of it. Spinatto's is one of my favorite pizza places, very yummy.

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