Parent's Night Out and a Fire Pit, Hooray!

We had "parent's night out" last night. The kid's daycare offers this service once a month and we take advantage of it as much as we can. We pick the kids up on Friday at the normal time, take them home, feed them, bathe them, and put them in their PJ's. Then we take them back to the daycare at 6:30pm. Two of the teachers are there with some of the school age kids who help. The kids love to go. We could leave them their until 11pm but we usually pick them up around 9:30. We just can't stay out that late. Plus, TTG works on Saturday mornings and is usually out of the house before 5am. So, anyway, we never really know what to do with ourselves when we go out. So, we had dinner and then went to Target. We used to go out to eat with the kids more often, usually about once a week. When they were smaller, it was so much easier and cheaper. But, now that they are older and more independent (read: BAD), we just don't like to go out that often with them. DC is such a talker and TPG has been described as having "no private thoughts" that we never know what they are going to say while at dinner. And, eating dinner together at home is also pretty important to us as well. We always sit down together and talk about what each of us did that day and we all really enjoy doing that.

Anyway, after dinner TTG and I went to Target. We could not think of anything else to do and Target is usually a fall back that is always fun. We both love to shop for a bargain so we spend a lot of time looking for good deals. Last night we saw that the summer outdoor stuff was on sale. I had been wanting one of those outdoor fire pits for a while but could not justify spending $100 or more on something that will hold burning wood. Well, we saw one on sale for $48 and we just could not resist.

So, this evening we got it put together and lit a fire in it. I told the kids that we were going to make S'mores and you would have thought I had told DC she really WAS a princess she squealed so much. And TPG acted like I told him he could run around naked for the rest of his life he was so excited. Now, neither of them actually knew what S'mores were but they just knew it was something good. Since we put our kids to bed around 8pm and it is the middle of July we had to light the fire when it was really bright outside. We roasted the marshmallows and the kids loved watching them turn golden. TPG loved the S'mores and wanted more while DC was not so impressed. She ate about half of one but at that point she was sticky and covered in melted chocolate and marshmallow. So, off to the bath we went. TTG sat outside watching the fire go down. I think we are really going to enjoy this fire pit thing.