What We Did This Weekend:
Christmas Party, Babysitting & Zepi's
We went to our ward's Christmas party Friday night, so we shifted our weekly date night to Saturday. We had a good time with our friends from church at the party. The best part is just sitting and chatting with them. There were also a few organized group activities, like some Christmas trivia and a gingerbread (graham cracker) house contest. They also had a cookie contest, but the cookies were gone so fast that we didn't get to try them all. Brookie had signed up to cook a ham and bring that for dinner. I found a great glaze recipe with clementines, cracked pepper, jalapeño, and brown sugar that turned out really well. But I think she and I were the only ones that knew that really appreciated it.
Saturday we had been planning on going to Babies 'R' Us and Target to sign up for their baby registries. But lately we've been looking for ways to be of service, and a pair of opportunities superseded the need to roam a few stores armed with a scanner, looking for things our child may or may not need.
Saturday morning I left the house at 7:30am to help a new member of our ward move some things out of a storage unit into his new home in Lee's Summit. There was never a pause in the conversation the entire time we were in the car driving to and back from the storage center in Shawnee, KS. Call me weird, but I kind of enjoy helping people move. First of all, people can always use a hand when they're moving. Second, you burn a ton of calories by spending a few hours lifting and moving boxes and furniture, which means I can pretty much eat whatever I want for the rest of the day.*
*This second reason did not dawn on me until I was driving home one afternoon after a move. I was so proud of myself for having turned down the offer to have a doughnut during the move and pizza afterwards. Then I realized that I had burned so many calories by working for the past few hours that having those treats would have been no problem at all. Too bad there hasn't been another moving/pizza opportunity since then...
Saturday evening we had the chance to watch two adorable little girls that belong to Brookie's friend from work, the former and much-missed vice principal. Both are under the age of three and both were extremely fun to play with. At dinner the younger sister put her big sister to shame by eating three-times the amount of food than she did. But we successfully helped the big sister finish her dinner, thanks to Brookie's quick feeding action and my distracting (and often comical) antics. By the end of the evening, as we were winding them down for bed (which, believe me, takes some effort, because if there's one thing I do really, really well, it's wind kids up), both of the girls had found a comfortable spot on my lap while we watched The Polar Express.
When their parents got home, we went out for our dinner date. They live in Overland Park, and there was a pizza place I've heard about on the radio that we (mostly I) wanted to try called Zepi's Pizza. What I didn't tell Brookie was that I had rented out the entire restaurant that night so we could have it all to ourselves. Okay. I'm lying. I'm much too cheap to pull something like that on a random Saturday evening. But we were the only people there the entire time. Unfortunately, that only made the dining area feel even emptier than it looked.
We're totally down with minimalism, but this place looked like they had more space than they could handle. Imagine the atmosphere at Waldo Pizza (the one in Waldo), then imagine what its polar opposite would be: that's Zepi's. It was like how I imagine the interior design to be in 1984, except instead of Big Brother on the five large screen surrounding the room, there was ESPN. The breadsticks were pretty good, but we can do better. The salad was okay. And the pizza was fine. Not great. Just fine. It actually reminded me a little of Round Table Pizza. In the end, I was glad to have satisfied my curiosity, but I was also glad that we hadn't driven over there for that reason alone. Since we were in the area already, it worked out just fine. But, if we're over that way again and in the mood for pizza, it will be well worth a drive to Waldo for some exceptional pizza and less sterilized atmosphere.
And that's what we did this weekend!
Go to the board!
Saturday we had been planning on going to Babies 'R' Us and Target to sign up for their baby registries. But lately we've been looking for ways to be of service, and a pair of opportunities superseded the need to roam a few stores armed with a scanner, looking for things our child may or may not need.
Saturday morning I left the house at 7:30am to help a new member of our ward move some things out of a storage unit into his new home in Lee's Summit. There was never a pause in the conversation the entire time we were in the car driving to and back from the storage center in Shawnee, KS. Call me weird, but I kind of enjoy helping people move. First of all, people can always use a hand when they're moving. Second, you burn a ton of calories by spending a few hours lifting and moving boxes and furniture, which means I can pretty much eat whatever I want for the rest of the day.*
*This second reason did not dawn on me until I was driving home one afternoon after a move. I was so proud of myself for having turned down the offer to have a doughnut during the move and pizza afterwards. Then I realized that I had burned so many calories by working for the past few hours that having those treats would have been no problem at all. Too bad there hasn't been another moving/pizza opportunity since then...
Saturday evening we had the chance to watch two adorable little girls that belong to Brookie's friend from work, the former and much-missed vice principal. Both are under the age of three and both were extremely fun to play with. At dinner the younger sister put her big sister to shame by eating three-times the amount of food than she did. But we successfully helped the big sister finish her dinner, thanks to Brookie's quick feeding action and my distracting (and often comical) antics. By the end of the evening, as we were winding them down for bed (which, believe me, takes some effort, because if there's one thing I do really, really well, it's wind kids up), both of the girls had found a comfortable spot on my lap while we watched The Polar Express.
When their parents got home, we went out for our dinner date. They live in Overland Park, and there was a pizza place I've heard about on the radio that we (mostly I) wanted to try called Zepi's Pizza. What I didn't tell Brookie was that I had rented out the entire restaurant that night so we could have it all to ourselves. Okay. I'm lying. I'm much too cheap to pull something like that on a random Saturday evening. But we were the only people there the entire time. Unfortunately, that only made the dining area feel even emptier than it looked.
We're totally down with minimalism, but this place looked like they had more space than they could handle. Imagine the atmosphere at Waldo Pizza (the one in Waldo), then imagine what its polar opposite would be: that's Zepi's. It was like how I imagine the interior design to be in 1984, except instead of Big Brother on the five large screen surrounding the room, there was ESPN. The breadsticks were pretty good, but we can do better. The salad was okay. And the pizza was fine. Not great. Just fine. It actually reminded me a little of Round Table Pizza. In the end, I was glad to have satisfied my curiosity, but I was also glad that we hadn't driven over there for that reason alone. Since we were in the area already, it worked out just fine. But, if we're over that way again and in the mood for pizza, it will be well worth a drive to Waldo for some exceptional pizza and less sterilized atmosphere.
And that's what we did this weekend!
Go to the board!
I miss Round Table Pizza All-You-Can-Eat Pizza Buffet and Friday Night Karaoke.
ReplyDeleteYou should know that the skinners GREATLY appreciated both your ham and the sauce.
ReplyDeleteSorry about your missing the cookies - especially the peanut butter kiss cookies that won best tasting (shameless plug.)