Our Big Night Out

I had a wonderful evening!


Roland had an IEP after school, so Andrew, Brian and I went to get Carl. Carl gave everyone big, long hugs. We got Gary out of the group home, and the whole family met up at the restaurant. Gary was very impressed when he got there. He said he had never been anywhere so fancy.

Going to a fondue restaurant is fun with a large group because you can order multiple fondues. If just two of you go, you have to choose one. We had four different cheese fondues. My favorite was the swiss/brie/pesto. Gary liked the "South of the border" made with cheddar. There were two very mild fondues, but I forget what exactly they had in them. We were at a long table so everyone could only reach two fondues themselves. Trying the others required passing your long fork with bread, fruit, or veggie to someone or getting up and walking around the table. We did both.


The main course came with electric grills and raw meat and veggies. We cooked, stole shrimp or strips of steak from each other, even fought over grilled mushrooms. There were six or seven different sauces for dipping and pouring. Dessert of course was chocolate fondue: milk, white, and two pots of dark. We told the waiter in advance that we would need extra strawberries, thank you very much.


We had to call the group home before dessert to ask to keep Gary out past curfew. We were actually at the restaurant for two and a half hours. The boys wanted to know if we would ever do this again. I said maybe when Gary graduated.


It was exactly what I wanted. David and Carl had never even met Gary before, but there was no awkwardness at all. Everyone had so much fun with the food itself that we did not lack for conversation. I got the waiter to take a photo of all eight of us. We passed around the camera and took photos of each other. It was pretty dark in the restaurant so we all have major red-eye, but I will see what we can do about that with all the software available.


The waiter asked us what we were celebrating. I told him Andrew's graduation, "and the fact that I have all of them in one state at one time!" He asked me if all these boys were mine. I looked at Gary and said, "What do you think? Shall we say yes?" Gary nodded enthusiastically and I turned to the waiter and said, "Absolutely."