I Suck At Not Your Average Joes

On Thursday, Karen and I reached another milestone since the birth of our daughter, Briana. That milestone: going out to eat as a family. Prior to Thursday, either Karen or I would go out to run an errand while the other one stayed at home to take care of Briana. Thanks to the doctors' orders of avoiding public places for a while, we would never all go out due to the Briana/germ factor.

That all changed Thursday because... well... both Karen and I got tired of the wait. Inevitably, the three of us would have to go out together at once. The list of errands to run was piling up a lot quicker than we could cross them off of our to-do list. So naturally, we decided to start with some baby steps.

We decided to head out as a family to Ace Curry Hardware located in Hanover. Ace was offering a free reusable tote sale. Any items that could be fit into the tote would be discounted by 20 percent. Naturally, I was all about the free reusable tote. Tote bags now are like those free promotional t-shirts that you get at liquor stores. In reality, you probably don't need another reusable tote... but you just want it because it seems cool.

Anyway, Karen and I thought Ace would be the perfect place to go as a family of three because there probably would not be that many people in the store. (And really, there weren't that many people in the store.) Regardless, the store was fantastic! Prior to Thursday, I had never been in the store. Well, the store was clean, well-organized... I thoroughly enjoyed the place. Sure, we did not purchase a lot of items (the sales associate was surprised by how little we had in the free tote), but it was nice to get out of the house as a family and check out the store.

So riding the wave of accomplishment, we decided to chance things and go out for dinner. Of course, we decided to go to Not Your Average Joe's located in Norwell. Now I suck at Not Your Average Joe's. Both Karen and I had been craving the food for some time. We had not been to the place for about over a month. I believe the last time we were there was the day before Briana came home. It was our celebratory dinner because the doctors had informed us that she would be going home the next day. And as it turned out, my friends (Cass and Ellen) had lunch there the other day. So the place was in our minds.

Needless to say, the food was delicious. Oh how I missed the food! It was definitely a great dinner. (I had the butternut squash pizza.) For both Karen and I, it was good to finally get out of the house and have a nice hot dinner... one that was not microwaved or processed or anything like that. It was good. And interestingly enough, Briana was absolutely great during the meal. Granted, she was passed out... asleep.

Topping off our spontaneous night, Karen and I then visited my favorite sister-in-law's (Janine). Janine, my favorite brother-in-law (PJ) and Janine's BFF (Gretchen) had gotten back from Las Vegas the night before. So we figured we'd stop by and hang out for a little while. And as luck would have it, Gretchen was there last night.

Anyway, it was a fun time to just hang out. Gretchen tried to pop PJ's pimple. Janine and PJ had a little disagreement over curtains. Karen and I seemed to have just added to the mayhem of the night by bringing Briana, but it was all good. For me, the most memorable part at Janine's was lining up all of my niece's (Kaleigh) dolls on the couch and placing Briana smack dab in the middle of the dolls. It was a picture moment that simply cracked me up. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera on me. Oh well.