Date Night

We don't get to go out on date nights very often, and with Andy working two jobs now, it can be even more difficult to make it all work out, but thankfully we have some great friends that we alternate watching each other's children so we can go out every other month. I am so thankful that we have that opportunity.

Andy had gotten some gift certificates for restaurant.com and we ordered one for Domo 77. It's one of those Japanese restaurants that cooks the food in front of you. We were going to go there for our date night, but then Andy remembered seeing something that said the coupon was valid from Sunday to Friday, so we realized we weren't going to be able to go there.

So, we pulled out the Entertainment book and found a coupon for a place called Fox & Outpost Grill. We dropped the kids off at our friends' house and headed out. We got there, only to learn that the place was closed down. We decided to drive around in downtown Geneva to see if there was anything that appealed to us, but we really didn't find anything. I thought maybe we should just head down Roosevelt to Randall and we'd hit the Geneva Commons, and I knew there was a California Pizza Kitchen. I mentioned it to Andy and he was all for it.

We turned onto Randall and as we got close to the Geneva Commons, for some reason, I thought about a place called Smash Burger that had recently opened in the area. Recently someone had mentioned it, and I can't remember if it was someone from the gym or from church or somewhere else. But I remember they mentioned the fried pickles. I'll be honest, I didn't really know what to expect, but it sounded very appealing to me. So, I threw that out at Andy and he was very happy to change plans once again.

I emailed my friend and let her know about our change of plans. I looked up Smash Burger on my phone and found out what they had listed on the menu, so we pretty much knew what we wanted before we even walked in.

I ordered the Mushroom Swiss Smash Burger with the Sweet Potato Smash Fries. Andy ordered the Big Spicy Baja Smash Burger with Smash Fries. And we split an order of the fried pickles. We went and grabbed our drinks and then we looked for a place to sit down, but the place was crowded. There was nowhere to sit, so we sat in a waiting area, and we kept an eye out for people leaving. Unfortunately, they weren't very organized there. There were several people that came in after us that had gotten drinks and were closer to tables when people left, so even though they ordered after us, they grabbed tables before us. I was a little frustrated about that. Our food came out, and we still didn't have a place to sit. The guy that had our food looked around for us and someone was getting up, so they cleaned off a table for us and we sat down.

Despite the frustration about not having a place to sit at first, the food was really, really good! I had ordered the sweet potato fries to be healthier, but I tried one of Andy's fries, and the sweet potato fries were waay better than the regular ones. They had olive oil, garlic and rosemary on them and I couldn't get enough of them. I also didn't know what to expect about the fried pickle. I thought it might be a whole pickle that was fried, but it was sliced - like hamburger pickle slices, and it was battered and fried and there was a dipping sauce. Super yummy!

We didn't stay long at Smash Burger. The food was good, but it was crowded, and it was fast food. So, we finished and left. But Trader Joe's was in the same strip mall, so we walked down to Trader Joe's and did a little bit of shopping in there. I wanted some dark chocolate covered espresso beans. We got those and some blue corn tortilla chips and some smoky, spicy peach salsa. We also got some sipping chocolate. We enjoyed enjoyed being able to walk around and spend some time checking things out.

When we were done, we were trying to think what else to do. We were thinking we might try going to a book store and walk around, but we ended up driving towards home, and so instead I suggested we go to Starbucks because I had a gift card.

Andy said he didn't want anything, but then he changed his mind and said he would have a hot chocolate. I asked him if he wanted a regular hot chocolate or a salted caramel hot chocolate. He got really excited about the salted caramel hot chocolate! I ordered a skinny caramel macchiato. I had a taste of Andy's hot chocolate and it was way yummy! We played a word game that I downloaded on my Kindle. We actually had a really fun time doing that. I think Andy wanted to keep playing, but it was getting late, and I thought we needed to go pick the kids up. He had no idea it was getting so late.

It was a simple date, and nothing spectacular, but it was just a really nice time to spend together. I never thought playing a word game with my husband would be so fun!

Next month, we watch my friend's children. April will be our next date night. We already checked to see if we could have our date night on Friday, April 1st. That's our anniversary, but we'll be able to use our restaurant.com coupon and go to Domo 77. Looking forward to our next date night. I'll have to bring my Kindle along. We should have another really nice date!