My best friends throughout the years have always remained my friends from high school – Uggie, Brad and Kelly. The first two are married and have two kids just about the same age as our kids. We’ve always managed to stay in touch and we get together 8-15 times per year. One thing we’ve started recently is an effort to get together for dinner sans children. We pulled it off back in October and we were able to pull it off again Saturday night. We usually find it easiest to get together in our hometown, since there are grandparents who can babysit nearby. Our first choice for dinner was booked, so we decided to try the Jazzy Fox Bistro in downtown.
It’s cool that a town of 13,000 people can have a more upscale restaurant. It actually has a dress code (business casual) that didn’t thrill us, but I donned the khakis for the opportunity to eat there. The bistro featured a piano player, coat rack, and brick walls redone from the original store. The menu featured typical American fare with steak, salmon and lobster. I had the top sirloin and it was good. For a side I had a mashed potato, sweet potatoes and carrots. I’d never heard of that before, but it wasn’t too bad. Uggie had the surf and turf, and that seemed to be very good. I’d recommend the restaurant to anone who asks – the prices were expensive, but not out of line for the type of restaurant. I’d even argue you get more food there than you would at another upscale restaurant.
I’d like to see more of these restaurants succeed in smaller towns. Unfortunately there’s probably not enough clientele for an upscale restaurant to survive. I don’t think the dress code helps. There were only 20 or so people there during the three hours we were there on a Saturday night. Hopefully they can stay open and thrive – I like to have some variety in options for eating out around the area.
Tonight was the Super Bowl and we were invited over to two different parties. Katie woke up with a bad cold this morning, and I don’t think she’s feeling great. She stayed awake all day until 3:15 when we headed off to the party. Her fatigue caught up with her by the time the game was ready to start, so we had her falling asleep in our arms. Amelia had only gotten her morning nap in by the time we left and she was tired by the time we arrived. After about an hour, she got really tired, but we couldn’t get her to fall asleep. We put them in a room upstairs, but when I went to check on them, I found we had two awake and crying girls. It didn’t look like we could make it work staying there, so we headed home from party #1. We got home and both girls were asleep within 10 minutes. So I headed to the next party alone at about the start of the second quarter. I had a good time, but it would’ve been more fun to have the girls along.
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