Date Night and Medical Lesson

It was a quiet morning. There was no company, so Shane and I started to work on one of his presents.

Kathleen and Stu bought Shane a Lego Ninjago fort for Christmas.

I turned pages and assembled pieces while Shane did the majority of the work. I'd occasionally error check, but it was all him! I'd much rather play with Legos or read than have him watch TV.

Honestly, I'd have loved to have built the fort myself. 

Cole appeared halfway past nine. Evelyn stayed home. She felt a little sick yesterday and took a three hour nap! Nana didn't want her to come over on Jama's last day just in case Evelyn was contagious (Jama was scheduled to go on a cruise at the beginning of Janurary and couldn't afford to get sick at sea!).

Nana and Pop took Jama to the airport, so I watched the boys for the morning. They enjoyed Nana's beans and things.

Not to say there weren't wild moments.

Evelyn started to miss Cole too much, so he had to return home.

Carrie and I would have been home all day, but Nana and Pop took over Shane duty and we got to go on a date night! We haven't used a babysitter outside of family since we moved to Charlottesville! Tonight, we went into downtown Greenville (the interstate becomes a normal road!), ate sushi, sampled flavored vinegars, and got ice cream.

Carrie was gracious enough to go with me to the local board game store on the way home. It had a wider selection than the store in Charlottesville. I had hoped to find a used section or some sort of deal. I didn't. The best deal they had (and it was a good one!) was for a game I'd already bought.

The big drama for the night was the "cancer sores" in Shane's mouth. Nana sent us a message as we sat down to order. "Cancer" was a clear typo or autocorrect mishap. Nana's text included a link to canker-sores. Shane said his mouth hurt and he didn't want to eat any food.

Nana and I traded texts for a minute until I sent a, "Wooing my wife. He can eat eggs."

When we got home, we looked in Shane's mouth and there weren't any canker sores. Instead, it was clear he had inherited Carrie's ability to lower his jaw and stick his tongue out longer than usual (He could join a KISS cover band when he's older. His tongue can go past his chin!). The 'canker sores' that freaked out Nana and Pop were his vallate papillae. Carrie recognized them right away. She'd known what they were since she grew up seeing her own.

Honestly, I had no idea what they were until I googled them. I knew the bumps weren't canker sores (I get those), but I've never seen vallate papillae before. My tongue doesn't stick out that far (and I have a very strong gag reflex whenever a doctor tries to peek around back there).

Date Night Out

We haven't found a babysitter since moving to Cville. However, Carrie signed Shane up for a "Date Night Out!" at the Discovery Museum. The theme: Bugs. 

He was happy.

That gave us three hours to ourselves. Carrie kicked it off by hugging a man on the downtown mall with a blindfold on and a sign about trust.

Then, we used our escape from Shane to escape from a deranged fortune teller's house who trapped victims in tarot cards!

 We completed a 6 person room by ourselves! The staff seemed pretty impressed (but they may have just been talking us up so we'd come back!). It was a ton of fun.

We ate dinner and then picked up Shane a little after 8 PM.

He didn't want to go home, but we were tired and Carrie's feet were sore!

Everyone had a good time. We'll have to do it again!

Dates!

With Shane out of town, Carrie and I managed to squeak some dates into our schedule. We're both working, so no exotic locales were explored.

It kicked off our week with Carrie's parents for lunch Sunday. 

There are several horse stores around Richmond. Can you guess where we went next?

Carrie said, "It's a surprise!"  when I asked, but it wasn't! The real surprise was when the owner, Myrna, recognized Carrie. It turned out Grandma used to know Myrna and help out with shows!

Jeff Foxworthy amused me while the ladies chatted.

We wandered around Carrytown and found a game store. Our refrigerator almost became an outlet for creative expression.

We crossed off a couple of restaurants around town on my "Should visit list," too. A short walk on one night out led to a small, independent grocer.

If Carrie doesn't recognize it, there's no way I'm going to recognize it. Kohlrabi is going to appear on our dinner table sometime soon.

Much of the produce was locally grown. The selection entertained Carrie; The stories entertained me.

I felt sorry for the cashier, though. He got thrown into prime time. He was alone, new, and nothing we bought had a barcode on it.

We didn't go out every night. There are other ways to stay entertained around the house.

We watched the entire Voltron reboot on Netflix, too. Carrie loved it. I need a second season to decide.

Winter Break: Date Night

For date night, Carrie and I played HeroQuest with Genevieve and Chris. We hadn't seen them since the Halloween party and......well, nerdy board-games from 1990 are cool. I never owned it, but I remember the commercial!

Maybe part of being an adult is playing things you thought looked cool as a kid, but never got around to it? Then you can complain about all the newfangled crap that doesn't have the same nostalgia flavor!

Then again, Carrie said that Sword Art Online and Disgaea properly prepared her to be able to learn and enjoy HeroQuest. Both of those are post yours truly.

Carrie's female barbarian kicked in doors and orc faces. I played the dwarf, because I have a beard. Gen was the DM with witty retorts and Chris played support.