Our Semi-Annual Date

Drew and I had a simply divine semi-annual date this past Saturday.  It happened to be our 5th wedding anniversary a week and a half ago and this past year has been quite a year.  So, we were thrilled when Drew's parents offered to come up and watch the kids for a day, while we enjoyed some quality time together sans kiddos.  We truly don't have enough quality time together without the kids.

Honestly, we have been so extremely busy lately that we didn't even plan anything for the day.  But, we did browse the web the evening before and got an idea of a few things we wanted to make sure we did while out together.

First, we decided to enjoy Austin like tourists do.  We visited several murals and snapped some photos while there.   We also checked out a downtown farmer's market.

Remember, we snapped a photo of this when while out with the kids a couple of weekends ago.  We found that this was sort of difficult to do with the kids.  So, we decided this would be a perfect thing to do together on our date.

We discovered this cool place with a lot of "art".

We were fairly close to whole foods downtown (the Huge Flagship Store), so we decided to stop by for a quick refreshment.  We sat down for a moment and drank some cherry limeade, and then I told Drew that I was needing to use the restroom.  I asked him, "Do you want to just meet me?"  I was pretty sure he mumbled, "sure."  Then, I headed to the restroom while he finished cleaning up the table area.  After I came out of the restroom, I searched for Drew, who I assumed would be waiting there outside the restroom.  Drew had my phone and his own phone in his pocket, because we decided to leave my purse in the car (and my phone wouldn't fit in my pocket).  I paced back and forth from the table where we were seated just minutes before (at the other end of the store), to the restroom several times--and without success.  After about 15 minutes of searching, I decided to head to the parking garage to see if he happened to decide to head to the car.  He wasn't there.  After 20 minutes of searching, I went to the service desk and said, "I know you probably haven't heard this request in about 20 years, but can you page someone for me?"  The nice lady at the desk told me that it happens more than you think.  So, over the loud speaker, she said, "Attention Whole Foods Customer, Drew, would you please meet your party at the self-checkout?  Drew, please meet your party at the self-checkout." I stood there like a little sad puppy who just wanted someone to adopt it.  People at the check-outs glanced over, and gave me little looks of pity.  I waited for about 10 more minutes, then I glanced over and finally saw Drew entering the store via escalator from the parking garage.  Oh my goodness!   Never was I so happy to see him but also so frustrated at the same time.  What a weird feeling!  Although the situation now seems pretty funny, at the time, I was just so upset at losing a good half-hour of our quality time together pacing back and forth looking for Drew.  It wasn't for about 15 minutes of good discussion later that we would be laughing about it.  Apparently, Drew thought I wanted to "meet him" at the car.  In my mind, he was meeting me at the bathroom.  When I entered the escalator to go to the car in the parking garage to look for him, he took the elevator to the store from the garage to look for me.  This is why he wasn't in the car when I searched for him there.  Either way, we decided that the moral of the story is that we would each have a phone before getting separated in a store again.  Now that we are laughing at the story, I decided it was a pretty funny situation on a "date" and a comical series of events to share.  We love each other so much and even in frustrating times like this we can tell what a huge blessing our relationship is to each other.
We had a pretty amazing rest of the day.  We did some shopping:

We had lunch at a new food truck.  And then, we had dessert at a new homemade ice cream store.  Oh. My. Goodness. We had dessert.

Lick offers the most delicious ice cream I have eaten in my entire life.  Seriously.  Can you tell from my goofy face above?  This place sources its seasonal ingredients locally to create some pretty eclectic combinations, such as roasted beets and mint and goat cheese, thyme and honey.   But, they also have some of my favorite combinations, like dark chocolate with olive oil and sea salt, and caramel salt lick (with homemade caramels and a hint of sea salt).  My small homemade waffle cone was divided with these two amazing flavors.  Drew chose the fresh mint and chocolate chunk.  This place even offers dairy free and vegan options.  We. Will. Be. Back.  If you come to visit us from out of town, you will be coming with us to this place.

Then we did some more shopping and exploration of Austin.  This kind of stuff is normally tough to do with little ones.  Abbey normally takes two 2-hour naps per day.   On the weekends, we usually consolidate it to one nap, so we can do more fun things together as a family outside of our home.  But still, it is normally difficult to get in and out of the car with the kids as much as we did on Saturday.  So, this was a special treat.

We finished the day with a delicious dinner and headed home to say goodnight to the kids.  Having these dates (even when infrequent) always reminds me how awesome it is to be married to my best friend in the world.  I told Drew on Saturday that I couldn't have even created in my head a more amazing life partner than what God has blessed me with.  God always has a way of reminding me that His are better than mine.  Feeling SO BLESSED lately!