An (Unexpectedly) Awesome Morning Outing

The kids and I had, as the title suggests, an awesome morning out.  It was even more awesome because it was an outing I had been dreading, indeed, putting off for days rather than drag sick kids on errands.  But, out we went, and I'm super duper glad.

First, we went to the cable company to exchange some equipment.  Sammy kept saying, "I 'ungry, mom."  I was like, whatever, you just ate before we left, kid.

Next, we went to Safeway for flour.  Sammy said, "yay, it's house of food!"  Yes, that is a building where they keep food...but nothing prepared I'm going to feed my kids for lunch.  He started crying as we walked out, this is the conversation we had:

Sam:  Mommy, mah tummy 'urts, I 'ungry (Mommy, my tummy hurts, I'm hungry).
Me:  Sam, you just ate breakfast, you can't be hungry.
Sam:  NO!  Loob-lee ATE mah jelly bu'er bread, I 'ungry (No, Jubilee ate my jelly butter bread, I'm hungry)!
Me:  Jubilee, did you eat Sammy's breakfast?
Jubilee: Okay! (her blanket affermative)
Me:  Why did you eat his breakfast?
Jubilee:  Eyez 'UNGRY, mom (I was hungry, mom).

Point in fact, it was actually a croissant with chocolate peanut butter and a banana they ate for breakfast, not jelly butter bread.  I'm not sure why he calls any sort of bread with anything at all on it "jelly butter bread," but he does.

Anyway, we were already downtown, and I really wanted to go to the hippie health food store to see if they knew where to get a scoby for my kombucha locally, so I told Sammy we'd eat as soon as we finished. By this point, my lack of food was making my tummy hurt, too, so I was sympathetic, but I wanted to get stuff DONE and get home before they melted down.  The guy at the store said he they didn't have any scobys (scobies? scobi?) and he didn't know where to get one, but to try the vegetarian restaurant a few doors down.  So, down we walked.

The vegetarian restaurant didn't have any kombucha, or scobys, or any idea what I was talking about...but they did have a falafel pita sandwich lunch special, so we stayed for lunch.  We had so much fun, we sat in a booth and chatted about legos and Mickey Mouse and whatnot, and my sandwich was yummy.  The kids got PB&J, but since that's all they wanted anyway, they were happy.

They were really good, perfect really, though Sam was starting to get a bit sleepy:

After lunch, we walked outside, and a train was going by.  We had to sit on the closest bench and watch it until it was past.  It was very, very exciting.

We stopped at a local coffee shop, because Mommy was wearing down (oddly, before the kids did).  They had homemade marshmallows there for $0.75, so I got a couple for the kids.  I tried to get a picture of those marshmallows, they were so pretty, but this is the closest I got:

So, I have this thing with iced coffee.  If it's good, well-roasted, fresh beans, and cold pressed, it's the most amazing stuff in the world, but if it's not, it's pretty gross.  I asked the lady behind the counter if their iced coffee was cold pressed.  She looked confused and said, "um, we have toddy coffee, it's like, soaked in cold water."  I said that was fine, I'll take one.  I'm being totally honest, it was the best coffee I've ever had.  I usually put a little simple syrup in my iced coffee, just to combat the bitterness of brewed and then chilled iced coffee, but I totally didn't have to in this case.  I'm sure their beans are also phenomenal, but I really want to get a Toddy System now.   The depth of flavor was just magical, I mean a strong dark chocolate undertone and not a hint of bitterness.  Ah-mazing.

Anyway, the kids did super well, we skipped and jumped down the sidewalk.

We jumped off every chair and park bench we could find.  Well, they did anyway.

I've decided we need to have an outing like this more often.  We try and schedule all of our "fun" stuff to do with Cam, which is good, but it also leaves us with 10 hours a day 5 days a week with nothing to do besides the playground.  This was perfect, he won't be jealous or upset he missed the train or eating meatless food, and we had a really good time.