{"id":853,"date":"2007-02-19T16:29:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-19T21:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/monday-february-19-2007\/"},"modified":"2007-02-19T16:29:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-19T21:29:00","slug":"monday-february-19-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/monday-february-19-2007\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday February 19, 2007"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/photo.xanga.com\/smilesbymiles\/11968107763578\/photo.html\" target=_blank><\/a>&nbsp;<span style=\"WIDTH: 0px\"><\/span>For months, we&#8217;ve been dreaming and longing for Valentines Day, promising ourselves that we would take a break just for us.&nbsp; When we&#8217;re in the middle of something so involving, like building a house, it&#8217;s hard to let go of the ever-present mental &#8220;got to keep things moving&#8221; dialogue.&nbsp; This once we managed to accomplish just that plus not rush ourselves to get ready or leave which made for a fabulous 24 hr rendezvous.&nbsp; We opted to stay in town since our time was short.&nbsp; I took Adam to my mom&#8217;s house Saturday morning and picked up a few groceries while David Lee plugged in some hours at the house.&nbsp;&nbsp; At noon, the magic time began.&nbsp; We did a bit of fun house shopping first &#8230; mostly looking at lights to see what we liked &#8230;&nbsp;and grabbed wraps for lunch.&nbsp; After that we browsed the mall, drank Starbucks coffee, and leisurely shopped some more.&nbsp; We checked in to the new Hilton hotel in town and were quite pleased to find it as lovely as the online pictures.&nbsp; Around 8 we headed to the downtown mall to check out an Italian restaurant we&#8217;ve always wanted to try and found it to be way beyond our expectations.&nbsp; Lovely golden textured walls, hardwood floors, rich tapestries at the windows, large ficus and palm trees, and fringed lamps created a warm, romantic, and semi-private atmosphere.&nbsp; I was delighted when the hostess ushered us to a tiny table in the corner, tucked away by the window and half screened by plants.&nbsp; The table decor was delightfully elegant.&nbsp; Gold cloth tablecloths topped by a smaller white one.&nbsp; Real silver, a fresh pink rose, and a tea light candle in a silver cup .. and then came bread that made you want &#8220;just one more small piece.&#8221;&nbsp; Our salads were a delightful mix of fresh mozzarella, sliced tomatoes, a bit of lettuce all drizzled with a fantastic basil and olive oil combination.&nbsp; I had roasted leg of lamb in caramelized onion sauce for the main course &#8230; yummy.&nbsp; Both of us love elegant dining yet every time we exit, we breathe a tiny sigh of relief.&nbsp; This time we decided it&#8217;s time to find an etiquette book at the library and educate ourselves on the &#8220;rules&#8221; so that we don&#8217;t sit there next time worrying about committing some terrible faux pas.&nbsp; Can anyone tell me, what are the rules for ordering?&nbsp; When we eat at &#8220;normal for us&#8221; places (like Ruby Tuesday) the waiter always looks at me first.&nbsp; I was all prepared to order this time and it discombobulated both of us a bit when our waiter kept looking at David Lee.&nbsp; Then at the table next to us, we noticed the guy ordered for both himself and his date.&nbsp; Is this customary at a certain level of dining or only at Italian restaurants?&nbsp; I can&#8217;t remember ever having this happen before although maybe it did and I was too taken up with other things to notice.&nbsp; I still shiver inside and turn red outside every time I remember what I did at Carmellos a couple of years ago &#8230; but that&#8217;s another story.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, my Cinderella hours had an easier transition back to the real world.&nbsp; We picked up Adam and Mom&nbsp;fixed a delicious lunch for us after church.&nbsp; Kelvin and Beth were there, too, and we had a great afternoon laughing and watching the snow blow.&nbsp; <br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/photo.xanga.com\/smilesbymiles\/11968107763578\/photo.html\" target=_blank><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"BORDER-TOP-WIDTH: 0px; BORDER-LEFT-WIDTH: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM-WIDTH: 0px; BORDER-RIGHT-WIDTH: 0px\" alt=\"fun at Mom's house\" src=\"http:\/\/x11.xanga.com\/968d46ea00135107763578\/z76385222.jpg\" width=400><\/a><\/p>\n<p>And now, we&#8217;re home.&nbsp; Back to the real world where my dryer conked out and there are a million nail holes to putty.&nbsp; But I&#8217;m not dreading it.&nbsp; I feel revived, rejuvenated, refreshed and ready to go &#8230;. and dreaming of the next vacation!&nbsp; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;For months, we&#8217;ve been dreaming and longing for Valentines Day, promising ourselves that we would take a break just for us.&nbsp; When we&#8217;re in the middle of something so involving,&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39ynQ-dL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}