My husband and I went on a date Saturday night. It was great! My parents picked up the kids at 4:00, and we were able to veg out for a couple of hours before dinner. We had a gift certificate for a free dinner for two at Piccolino's in Napa, given to me by my friend Maria. It included appetizers, salad, entree, dessert and a bottle of wine. We had fried calamari, I had the potato leek soup, my husband had a chicken ceaser salad, and for the entree I had angel hair pasta with tomatoes and prawns. My husband's meal was just so so. Unfortuantely the pesto sauce was as thin as water. We enjoyed a bottle of "mystery" cabernet, and I had an apple pie type dessert with a scoop of vanilla gelato on top.

I can't remember the last time we actually went out to dinner on our own. It is increasingly difficult as we are tightening the belt money-wise around here. I made sure to tell Maria how grateful I was for the gift certificate. She is such a sweetheart!

The kids stayed the night at my paren't house, so we got a good night's sleep, and got to sleep in on Sunday morning. I only woke up a couple of times to phantom children crying. I was able to go to the grocery store, take some clothing back to the store because they forgot to take the security censors off, shampoo the carpet and get the new lawnmower set up. The lawnmower was a gift from my dad. Ours is on the fritz, so I asked if we could borrow his. In typical dad fashion, he calls me up and says instead of borrowing his, why doesn't he buy me one and call it an early birthday gift. My husband asked me if maybe I didn't want something a little more "frilly" for my birthday. I told him I would see if they had any pink ones!

All in all a good weekend.