Alphabetical Dates: The Letter "A"

A few weeks ago, on the Saturday Six, I shared this post with you - from the website Canvas and Table. It was an idea for planning alphabetical dates - one date themed with each letter of the alphabet. I absolutely fell in love with the idea, which shouldn't surprise any of you who know me well. You know I love dates and themes. So I sat right down at the end of last year and planned out all 26 dates (nerd alert!!!) and we were supposed to start the project a couple of weeks ago with the date inspired by the letter A.

Alas, something inspired by the letter G kept us from eating normally, so all dates had to be postponed. And so it was that this past Saturday, we went on our "A" date, and it was so. much. fun!

It actually worked out that we had to delay this date, because we got to do something extra and fun that we wouldn't have if we'd done it "on time."

Our friends Bill and Kristin (my friends from my pre-Ryan days) had the incredible privilege to adopt their foster daughter, and the official adoption date fell on Friday. Saturday, they had a big party at their house to celebrate their forever family. An adoption party? Sounds like the perfect way to kick off an A date, doesn't it?

We had a great time catching up with old friends (friends from yore, not elderly friends) and watching the new family interact together. Really glad we could be part of this day!

ALSO...got to see my friend Cherri AND have my picture taken with her! Had a picture with Kristin too, but didn't ask if I could use it here, so I won't. Cherri said it was okay. ;)

After we left the party, we went to the next part of the date, which was an APPETIZER DINNER. Ryan and I never order an appetizer when we go out to eat, because we're too cheap and we don't want the extra calories on top of our dinner calories. So we've never enjoyed the goodness of the appetizer menus anyplace we go. Originally, when I thought we were going to stay in Kokomo for this date, I was going to have us go to Applebees for appetizers, because double alliteration makes me incredibly happy. But when I knew we would be in Indianapolis, it seemed the perfect time to use some gift cards we had for the Cheesecake Factory.

Our plan was to arrive at the Cheesecake Factory early, eat before the dinner crowd hit, and then walk off our meal by perusing the attached Fashion mall. That was the plan. And you know what they say about the best-laid plans.

We arrived at 4:30 and by the time we inched our way to the front of the line and got our name put in, we were told it would be a one hour wait to get in. And that was only because we were a party of 2. Larger parties had to wait 2 or 2.5 hours to get a seat. And it wasn't even dinner time yet!

They told us the pager wouldn't work if we went out into the mall, so we didn't. We stayed all crammed at the front of the restaurant, watching the 50+ person line stay steady as time went by. I was about to ask some parents of kids if they would sell me stale cheerios from their diaper bags. I was so hungry! {Hadn't eaten much at the party because I knew the appetizers were coming. Or I thought they would be, anyway.}

My favorite part of the wait was this lady who came in with two little boys in tow (probably about five years old) and they formed a human train and pushed past the whole line of people waiting to put their names in and arrived at the counter before turning around and leaving. I heard the lady say as she walked out, "This place must have really good food." I'm not sure why she thought it was okay to cut past all the waiting people, but she did!

Finally, about 15 minutes before our hour was up (and after I had admittedly made this a matter of actual prayer), our buzzer buzzed.

I literally jumped up and down and did not even care what the people next to me thought. (They were probably just jealous anyway.) We got our table and the nice man brought us water and coffee and BREAD. Carbs had never been so welcomed. I was so hungry, I was shaking.

When we ordered, our waiter asked if we were going to want cheesecake, and we said yes, so he told us we should put in our order then because cheesecake alone had another 40 minute wait. (This stuff is all very baffling to folks who normally eat at Wendys.)

The whole process of choosing our appetizers had been taken care of before we even arrived. I'd printed out the menu and we made our process of elimination choices on the drive down. So we were READY to order. We picked totally not clean-eating choices of fried macaroni and cheese and a buffalo chicken dish. They were HUGE and delicious! We shared both and still brought half the dishes home!

It was fun to order things we'd never had, and when we finished up, our cheesecakes were ready! White chocolate raspberry truffle for Ryan and salted caramel for me:

He powered through and put the whole thing away, but I could only eat half (the little half!) of mine. Plenty of leftovers!

We tried not to dilly-dally at our table because lining the walls of the restaurant were all the people waiting like we had been, and I could feel them watching us linger over our coffee and wishing we would just GET OUT. (I would have felt the same way.)

And our final part of the date? Wandering through the fashion mall looking for stores that start with the letter A.

We went in other stores too, including this one, where I found no apothecary table or anything from colonial times. LOL!!!

All in all, the evening was SO much fun. Just something different, and almost free, since we had gift cards! I'm looking forward to the rest of the letters, and since someone asked me on Facebook, no the B date is not a trip to Barbados! Too bad!!!!!

Linking up with Tamar!