navygreen | A little bit of everything. (Reply)

Heather and her husband Shane treated us to dinner tonight - just Philip and me. Our friend Ann watched the boys out at her house while we were gone, and they had a blast playing during that time with her kids. Philip chose Outback Steakhouse for dinner, and the food was yummy as always. He was especially giddy to learn that Mahi Mahi was the 'Catch of the Day,' and that's what he chose for dinner (it's his favorite fish, but we always miss the "right" days for it whenever we go out anywhere).

The company and conversation was even better than the food, and Shane and Philip parted with a hearty handshake. Heather will probably drop by some time tomorrow, too.

After dinner, Philip and I headed over to the adjacent Wal*Mart to pick up a few things. We ended up scoring on several items, too:

- Isla Cruces Playset (from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest) - only $5.50 (we'd been watching this item since November, when it debuted at well over $40! And we bought the last one in the store - score!)
- Star Wars Deluxe Transformer Millenium Falcon - only 6.50! (Philip has been watching this one for A.J. for several months, and it was over $40 too!)

We also picked up a combo set of a classic Magna Doodle and Etch-a-Sketch toys. Our Magna Doodle is pretty much ruined after years of hard play, and A.J. stepped on and broke the old Etch-a-Sketch this past summer. The combo was originally $25, but we got it for only $7.50!

We'll be keeping the Magna Doodle, Etch-a-Sketch, and Isla Cruces Playset for Jack's birthday in the summer, while the Star Wars toy is for A.J.'s birthday in August as well. It feels pretty nice to have such big gifts so far in advance, and for such little money too!

Also, we picked up a bottle of the new Listerine® Agent Cool Blue™ Rinse for the boys and tried that out tonight. Let me tell you: it is the neatest stuff ever! I used it myself, and I loved it. It's great for showing you where you need to brush a little more, and it didn't taste nasty like "grown-up" mouthwash usually does. I loved it, and I intend to use it every night with the boys. :-)

Edited to add: Oh, and I found a cool website for kids on the stuff - even better!

We found out Philip's departure time, and it is probably worse than the least of what I had hoped for. He'll be leaving at 5:15am. Not only will we all have to face the world in the morning after his leaving, but we'll be waking up a full three hours before our usual time - which, I'm sure, will make for a more unpleasant day than normal. And it's not like we can just drop him off and come back home and go to sleep for another hour or so; it just doesn't work like that. *sigh*

With that, I'm off. Best of Monday evenings to you all.