Date Night: Italian Restaurant at Home

Saturday night it was my husbands turn to plan date night and this time he really delivered!  First off, he made pizza for the kids for dinner and told me that we would be having dinner together after the kids were in bed.  (But he was nice and let me sneak a slice of pizza to hold me over).  Then, while I was putting the kids to bed he got to work setting up his little surprise.

When all the kids were asleep (except one who kept sneaking out to see what we were doing)  he told me that we would be dining at a little italian place for our date.  And, out on our balcony I found this:

Love it!  He had set up a little table (storage drawers with a table cloth over them-you have to be resourceful around here) and two chairs and the italian  menus were on the table.  He even included candlelight for ambiance.

Now, here's the part that really impressed me about the menu:

1.  He had looked up italian terms

 for the food that he prepared and described each item on the menu

with it's italian name.  So, instead of just saying "pizza"

it said "mi piace la pizza" ( it just means I like pizza but it sounded fun)

and then had a fancy description that included a few italian terms.

2.  There was more than one choice on the menu. 

He had pizza and calzones as options for main dishes. 

 He had prepared both because they both use pretty much the same ingredients (pizza dough, sauce, cheese, meat).  Whichever dish I decided to order, he would order the other one.  Nice touch.

I placed my order and he returned shortly with our food and some fancy sodas in glass bottles that looked like something you would get at a little cafe.  (not that I've been to a lot of little italian cafes but I can imagine)

Once dinner was served we just sat in the moonlight with our candles and our sodas and enjoyed dinner together.  No TV blaring, no cell phones, no kids (except that one who snuck out the back door and tried to look at us from the back yard....I knew I shouldn't have let him nap for so long) Ok, after a while he fell asleep and then there were no kids and we just talked like we used to talk when we were dating.  We asked each other what we worry about and what makes us truly happy and what we wish and we were just us.

We don't get to be just us enough and I loved it.  It felt like a real life date.  Like we were the only people in this romantic restaurant late at night.  We could have just sat at our kitchen table and ate pizza but this was SOOOO much better and felt so much more like the old times.  I can't wait until the next time he plans our date night :)