CasKat...we miss you Ken!

Ok, sorry for those of you that get notifications of my blog.  This morning has been dedicated to catching up, because I want to let you know that I am sitting next to my dear Katie while we are both blogging about our adventure yesterday.  A non-chronological blog would drive me nuts, so I think I am all caught up now and can finally tell you about yesterday. 


Saturday morning was a regular chore day in Lakewood.  We moved the dock up, which as you will see was desperately needed.  Dad and I fixed a broken sprinkler pipe in the back yard and Mom and Lisa painted the patio furniture to match the new deck.  After this came the fun, but strangely enough, I had fun doing the projects that I used to work on with my dad on a regular basis. 

*Taken from my favorite seat in the backyard...the yellow swing.

*Much better.  My dock is now safe.  And yes, I say my dock, because I built it.  Ok, dad built it and I helped.  I only lost one tool in the bottom of the lake, that dad will never let me live down.  

However, it will most likely have to be moved again, and there is no more room! 

The water has not been this high in years.

Now here is my reminder to you:  Katie is my wonderful friend from Fresno State who traveled with me to Europe and who decided with me to blog this 2011 year.  We have been doing reasonably well with the blogging thing, but it is so much better to be sitting next to her and spending face-to-face time instead of computer-to-computer time.  Katie and I are sitting here blogging together, in our pj's, with our Lakewood Doughnut House doughnuts (which are incomparable to any other doughnuts) and our Starbucks that dad brought home for us.  Thanks dad!

So, Katie drove from Seattle to my house to meet us here before dinner.  It took many hugs of excitement after she walked in the front door to get all the way inside; then it was like we haven't been apart at all.  Here was the adventure part:  a new restaurant in Sumner that my mom found in a magazine.  Thankfully mom and dad are always up for a new food adventure too.  Well, mom is; dad is thankful when a new restaurant is found that he can find something on the menu he likes.  This was the jackpot of all finds!  Dad even said there multiple choices for him.

Toscanos Cafe and Wine Bar

Here is the link to their website:  Toscanos

I think this is one of my new favorite restaurants ever.  The place is tiny and at 6pm was full for dinner.  The interior is cute, ambiance was great (after our waitress brought it to us, by lighting the candle on our table), and of course the company could not have been better.  We had this great table in the corner by the window that overlooked the highway.  I must admit that the view was not great, but the view inside was perfect.  It took us nearly 20 minutes to decide what we were eating and I think the waitress realized at that point that we were going to be "that table" for the night.  After getting our food we knew why the place was so full so early.  Incredible does not do it justice.  This was, as most family dinners are, a Two Snort Dinner, with mom wiping her tears of laughter on the napkin and dad rolling his eyes. 


Since a picture can say what words cannot, I will simply post the pictures of our dinners instead of trying to describe them to you. 

 

 

Dessert was next.  We have this tradition with dad, of picking up Baskin Robins ice cream on the way home from dinner.  Last night, we varied from the norm and got dessert at Toscanos (which also took a good 20 minutes to decide).  It was well worth the abnormal.  Katie and I had Creme Brulee, which seems to becoming a tradition for us.  I believe this will be the 2nd picture on my blog with the two of us eating this wonderful dessert.  And again, pictures are better, so here are the desserts.  In the words of Sisterface Lisa, "It is wrong how much I just ate."  We all agreed. 

 

 

 

*Dad did eat more than this, he just got the whiped creme from the Brownie on the side.

Happy and Full Group

We finished eating and waddled out to the car.  I literally mean waddled, because of how full we were.  Next step, the hot tub!  My parents have a new deck and a new hot tub in the back yard.  We have always had both, just these are upgrades.  The hot tub has a stereo system built in, to which we turned on the classics of Frank Sinatra, Michael Buble, and other greats.  Meanwhile we turned the Mariner's game on in the living room so we could check the score through the window.  Again, we will not mention the score, although it was better this time. 


Somehow, the hot tub made me feel magically less full.  It was great, relaxing, and a beautiful evening.  Every song or so we would move a seat to the left.  This was to test out all the seats, as each one has different jets and air flow.  It was like a game of musical chairs.  This was all we could muster for the evening.  We started to watch a few minutes of TV before heading to bed, but Dad went straight to bed, Lisa followed quickly for fear of spending the night on the couch if she didn't get up, and Katie and I woke mom up every time the commercials came on in order to fast forward through them.  We didn't last very long either.  Nevertheless, it was an incredible adventure that will hopefully be had again soon. 


For your enjoyment; here is Katie's version of our evening on her blog.  I am excited to read her rendition as it was the same adventure and we are sitting next to each other now, but we didn't discuss what we were going to write beforehand.  http://www.lovinseattle.blogspot.com/