Family Meal

I think when I posted the other day I said I would finish the second part "tomorrow".  My tomorrows are certainly long and drawn out.
Soooo - back to what I was saying "yesterday"...
During the reception our family got together and decided to have dinner somewhere.  When you have over 10 people it's near to impossible for the whole group to decide on one particular place.  Aunt Cheryl mentioned Taco Bell (that would be because she loves Taco Bell and Texans claim that Texas Taco Bells in no way compare to California Taco Bells).  Who knew?  So after we all told her "NO" in unison, Uncle Ben said "PF Chang's".  Luigi was all for that one as were some others but we also got some ugly faces.  So then someone said "Cheesecake Factory".  Ok...that made everyone happy for the most part.  I mentioned that there may be a wait so asked Dan to call and put our name in.  Silly me.  There is no such thing as putting your name in at Cheesecake Factory on a Saturday at 6:00pm.  So we drive there.  You have to be familiar with Fashion Valley Mall in San Diego to truly appreciate the pain it causes to even enter the parking lot.  There ain't no economic depression in that part of the world!  So we come up with a plan.  I drive and Luigi and Mom are in the backseat.  Luigi is to jump out and put our name in.  We leave him to fight his way into there and then I drive across the parking lot so Mom can jump out at PF Chang's and put our name in.  Whoever has the least wait is the winning restaurant.  Meanwhile we have called Josh and Michelle to come meet us.  It takes a good 3 minutes to drive across the parking lot.  You could walk faster - really you could.  Bev hops out and we go back to pick up Luigi at the Factory.  No Luigi.  So we circle around.  By the way, the whole loop takes 5 minutes at a time.  He finally texts me and tells me he is still in line to put his name in to wait in line.  Wow.  Back to PF Chang's to pick up Mom.  She says 1 hour/45 minutes.  Has her little pager.  Back to pick up Luigi.  Still not out front.  Do the route again.  Finally on the 3rd time he comes out and says 2 hours/30 minutes.  Way worse.  He jumps in the car and we circle to find parking and we see all the rest of the family going in the door.  We find parking and all convene in the lobby of the Factory.  We have 2 little kids and know they are not going to last over 2 hours.  We need to pick a new restaurant.  But then good news...Mom's PF Chang's pager went off!  So 13 of us trek on over to PF Chang's.  We have people using canes, people pushing strollers, tired people, you name it.  I'm still in the car so drive over there with Mom and her pager.  We all arrive at the same time and we are told that she broke the rules and went out of range and thus...the pager went off!  Nice!  Everyone is huffing and puffing and we say "false alarm"!  Geez.  So we call El Torito across the freeway and they say "no wait".  So we all manage to get people, strollers, and the like all packed in to cars so we can go to El Torito.  And don't forget to call Josh and Michelle to tell them of the location change.  So I drive to El Torito...Luigi goes in there and guess what?  A party of 14 just walked in ahead of us!  Of course they did.  Yet another wait.  We were all so exhausted by this time that everyone just wanted to go bed!  However, we finally did get a table and we did have a nice time!  Josh and Michelle made it - worked out good for them because Michelle got to go into Express and buy a new top during the whole chaos thing so they missed the real fun.  Here is Josh and Michelle...perhaps this is the top she bought?


Josh & Michelle


Of course, the 3 year old let loose of his balloons in the restaurant and oops, broke the ceiling fan!  This is what we caused...

This is us waiting outside of El Torito...not sure what he was looking at.  My feet?  Down my dress?  I don't think he knew either.

And here is a pic of most of the family after the service and a pick of all the cousins (Melika is Andy's significant other) except for Josh who was...I don't know...learning to tie yellow ribbons on trees or something?  Seriously, he was at a Yellow Ribbon something having to do with military duty.  Of which I am proud of and definitely thank him for his service!

Dan, Julie, Andy, and Melika

Hugh, Julie, Bev, Vickie, Wendell, Cheryl, Ben, and Dan

And THAT my friends is the rest of the story.  Amidst the chaos it was nice to have the family together again.  May be a long time before we get to do that again.  And we STILL won't go to Taco Bell! ♥