Big Month

July has been a big month here at Casa Zustiak. As you've probably already read, Caleb had surgery yesterday. But we've also had lots of other big things going on. So many things that I haven't really had a chance to get the photos uploaded and blog about them. So, I'm going to retro-blog about them a bit at a time, starting with our anniversary.


We spent a great portion of this anniversary trying to recall how we had spent our previous ones.

I remember that on our first anniversary, we went to the science center, then we went out to eat at Red Lobster (one of my favorites) and we finished the day by going to see a movie--Shrek, I believe.

Our second anniversary was spent at Union Station. We ate at Landry's, which was fairly unimpressive. We may or may not have also spent some time at the Botanical Garden that day, or that might have been our 3rd anniversary. I can't remember anymore.

Anniversary #4--our first date after becoming parents. We left Connor with Caleb's parents (we were visiting the family in Joplin) and we went out to eat and we saw which ever installment of the Harry Potter franchise had just come out.

Two years later, for our 6th anniversary, I was too pregnant to do anything (Riley was born less than a week later). So, my husband went to a drive through for every single meal that day and brought fast food home to me! Healthy? No. But, I didn't have to cook or clean, which was priceless to the woman who was 8,000 months pregnant.

So, of 8 previous anniversaries, we could only recollect 4. 50%. That's a failing grade.

We weren't sure what we wanted to do, but I had already lined up babysitting.

We discussed going to see the next Harry Potter, but decided that the odds of running into students of ours were too great, plus there would be too many tweens (even if they weren't students). So we settled on going out to eat, and then maybe going to the mall--without having to drag along a stroller!

But then I got to thinking...I've been hearing a lot of people (and by a lot, I mean at least 2) talk about a place called The Melting Pot lately. So I googled it.

I knew it wouldn't be cheap. And I knew it wouldn't be a short dinner. But it looked fun and memorable. We decided that we owed it to ourselves to do something really cool for this anniversary, so we made a reservation. We got dressed up and went to dinner.

We had a blast! We ordered the four course dinner--the cheese fondue, the salad, the main course and the dessert. It took a couple of hours to get through the whole dinner. But we got to spend time together and enjoy ourselves without the aid of the crumb crunchers. It was so much fun!!

Here are some photos from our fantastic date:

The Happy Couple--9 Years Later


The Main Course--We had to cook our own food. For how much dinner cost us, I kind of expected them to cook the food, but it was fun.


My husband, cooking his dinner. Sorry the photo is of such poor quality--my camera blows.

I would have posted a photo of me, but I look ridiculous in both the pictures Caleb took of me. So, it's not going to happen.

Dessert--some sort of tirimisu fondue with all this amazing stuff to dip into it.
So not on the new diet plan.

If you're ever in a city that has a Melting Pot restaurant, I highly recommend it. Just make sure you've got plenty of $ and even more time. Or, just go and have dessert--that was the best part, anyhow.