Change of (dinner) plans

At the point when I left for work yesterday morning, I planned to make Swedish meatballs for dinner when I got home. By lunch time, when the temperature hit the low 70s, plans shifted to grilling burgers in the backyard. By the ride home, my car thermometer read 81 beautiful degrees (the thermometer doesn't actually say "beautiful", but it sure looked lovely to me!) I changed my mind again. Who wants to stand over a hot grill? Not me.

And so instead we let the staff at Gordy's do the grilling and frying. When I suggested it to the kids, big surprise, I got no argument.

AJ has now reached the "bunny ears are so funny in photos, I even want to give them to myself" stage. Sydney, of course, has to copy her big brother, though she prefers the two-handed bunny ear approach.

Sydney managed to charm a lobby full of people, including Gordy himself on this visit. After ordering our food, we waited at our table for them to call our number when our food was ready. Sydney looked down at the slip and asked me what our number was. I told her she could figure it out and pointed to it.

"1 - 5 - 2," she read.

"That's right," I told her. "One-fifty-two."

"That's my favorite big number!" Sydney excitedly exclaimed.

A few minutes later, we heard our number announced. Sydney grabbed our slip of paper and started racing through the restaurant. Hearing our number announced a second time as she rounded the corner to the front counter, Sydney waved the slip over her head as if it was a winning raffle ticket, and enthusiastically shouted, "We're coming!"

There were plenty of smiles and chuckles from other diners, which only added to Sydney's excitement. She bounced up and down while we waited for the server to process my credit card. The restaurant's now elderly founder looked over the edge of the counter and asked her if she was doing jumping jacks. Suddenly shy, Sydney covered her mouth with her hands, but continued jumping up and down. Gordy looked at me and commented, "wish I had knees that could do that."

At last it was time to dig in. My hot dog lover decided to almost edge out of her rut, ordering a corn dog instead. Meanwhile, AJ channeled his inner Dagwood, trying to bite into an impossibly high stacked fish sandwich.

After dinner, they of course still had room for ice cream, and so across the parking lot we went.

Hopefully, these gorgeous days will soon become the norm, rather than the exception. But for now, with a 30+ degree drop in temperature expected by tomorrow, we still must savor as many moments as possible of these sunny and and warm days.