Date night.

I had such high hopes for our date night when L rang the door bell a few minutes before 7pm on Friday night.  L has been giving Ellie swimming lessons this summer and Ellie just loves her.

L came inside and was carrying a little bag.  Ellie is not the most enthusiastic swimmer so we talked about making a swim chart for her so she could put stickers on when she mastered new tricks.  L asked if we had made one yet and I apologized and said that we hadn't but were going to get everything this weekend.  She said that was perfect because she brought the supplies needed to make a sticker chart together.  How cute is that?!

L pulled out glittery cardboard and fish stickers.  The polish was coming off Ellie's fingers and toes at swimming the other day so she also brought over a new color to paint Ellie's nails.

When I told her how awesome she was she said, "I was just trying to think back to what you guys did when you babysat us."

Yes, that's right.  The 'you guys' is my sister and me.  I babysat our babysitter.  And our babysitter is going to start her senior year of college.  Um, I feel old.

So although this was our first time leaving the girls with L, because Ellie knows her well and Madeline was asleep before we left, we weren't worried at all.  We knew Ellie might stall at bedtime, but other than that we knew they would have a great time.  Which Ellie made abundantly clear when she said, "OK, good bye!  See you in the mornin'!" like two seconds after Lisa got to our house.

We got in the car - the one without the car seats in the back - and were on our way.  A cute little Italian restaurant opened up near our movie theater so we decided to try it out and then see Inception.

When we pull up to the restaurant we saw a sign on the door that said 'closed, no power'.  It was strange because it didn't look like the power was out in the neighborhood.  And despite dark clouds, it hadn't stormed.  We wondered if 'no power' was code for 'lost liquor license' or 'shut down by health department'. 

I was bummed because I was wearing a cute dress {which Ellie helped pick out} and our only options left were not so exciting chains.  After a few minutes of pouting, I conceded to BW3's and got excited for a tall, cold beer and wings.  It was the hottest day of the year after all.

We sat down and the little boy screaming every time he crashes in his driving game is kind of ruining my mojo but I'm sipping a beer and life is good.  Until the power goes out.

We were wondering why it wasn't so crowded on a Friday night.  Turns out the restaurant had just gotten their power back on and reopened.  The good news is we got free beer - which would have been even more exciting to me 8 years ago - but then we were out the door. 

Starving but wanting to see our movie and we agreed we could eat a dinner of popcorn and nachos and just drove to the movie theater.  You guessed it, no power.

Because it was the hottest day of the year, the power company was having trouble keeping up with the stretch of restaurants, movie theaters and strip malls.  No one knew when it would come back on.

Now at this point a couple who wasn't out for their first dinner AND movie date in 11 months might have given up.  But not us.  L had said we should stay out late and live it up so we drove to the next town over to check out their movie times.

Right when we were pulling into the movie theater parking lot, we saw an almost perfect rainbow.  The colors were so crisp and both ends were almost visible.  Ellie would have loved it.

I hopped out of the car to run in and check the show times and it turns out there is a show in exactly one hour.  Coincidentally, there is also a BW3's 100 feet away.  We sat in a great spot outside to watch the heat lightening, got new drinks and wings - which I'm pretty sure I haven't eaten since college! - and plopped down in our theater seats with five minutes to spare.

Inception was awesome and we arrived back at home a little after midnight.  Madeline never made a peep and Ellie stalled bedtime until 10:30 pm, a new personal best.  The sticker chart was sitting on the table in all of its glittery glory and although we had a few challenges, date night was a success.