Date Night at Parque Arauco

Parque Araucano is the name of a huge park near our home (beautiful flowers). Parque Arauco is the name of the mall north of it. The names are too similar - it's confusing for me. Both are within walking distance from our apartment. Last night Corey and I were thinking we should start making a weekly date night a priority again. I didn't arrange for a sitter though, but said maybe we could just run over to a cafe and leave Joe in charge. Still, I wasn't feeling that great with the pregnancy, and Corey was in the zone with his work, so I started to think we wouldn't go out today, we'll try tomorrow. Then Corey came back from his work and wondered why I wasn't ready, aren't we gonna go? "I thought we were gonna leave Joe in charge?" "Oh, well I thought you were going to work tonight?" (A fault Corey and I both have is that we are both too accommodating to the other, thus we never know what we're gonna do cause we don't know what the other really wants to do) So, how bout this, you go work for another 50 minutes, be back here at 9, I'll be ready, we'll leave Joe in charge, and go for a quick date. Plan! Look at us, we made a plan! Good job.

Corey was back at 9. Mel was making Valentines with Abi, Lily was watching a "moo-mee" Toy Story 3 in Spanish, Hy, Wes, and Ethan all lost in Legos, we quietly told Joe we were now going to sneak out, here's my phone, call us, we're just across the street.

And we were out! We went on a nice night time walk, the air felt cool - These past few days it has actually been overcast! It's been perfect weather and sunshine since we got here in Santiago the beginning of December, so these past few days have been so nice, nice cool air, it even slightly rained on Wednesday. It feels like fall in Utah - beautiful.

We walked through the park and into the mall, it was my first time to the mall. "You haven't been here yet?" Corey's decides I need to get out more. We wandered around, pretty lights and music. It had already been a half hour, we call and check on Joe, all is well. We decided to go eat at Tierra De Fuego. I got the Salmon with some rice, covered with some tasty and buttery sauce. Not good to eat that kinda stuff, (especially after 9 at night! doh!) But it was tasty, saved half for later. Corey got the Steak and potatoes. Delicious.

After taking our time eating, never felt any impressions to hurry home, it was 10:00 and the phone rang. I was Joe. "Mom. I just wanted to let you know that Toy Story 3 just ended, Lily is asleep, the other kids are watching Kid History on your computer, and the kitchen is clean."

"Wow Joe, thanks so much... You are awesome." We got lucky with Joe, you couldn't ask for a better kid. Only 11 years old and he can babysit 6 kids! We pay our bill and walk home. Hooray for our first date night of the year! We'll give it a shot again next week. We might have reached the next level of parenthood - able to leave our oldest kid in charge! Sweet!

Driving along Avenida Kennedy - isn't Las Condes beautiful?

TGI Fridays - lots of restaurants across the street for us to visit, lots of date nights. And I love this wall of plants on the Mall - isn't that great design and so "green"! I'm thinking I'd like a wall garden like this someday.