The weekend I left my house multiple times

It's rare that I spend an entire weekend eating out, but sometimes there are very important occasions to celebrate and there's just no getting around it. Also, I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but restaurants are awesome. Just between you and me I'm starting to think that cooking every meal is for suckers. YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST.

Occasion number one was a great excuse for me to feel pretty old dive into some Mexican food: the 10th anniversary of Emily and Garrett's first date/our first double date with them me meeting Emily!

I'm wearing a Tulane shirt because I was trying to approximate what I wore ten years ago. Emily looks nice because she is an adult.

We went to the very same El Arroyo that we did that fateful Saturday long ago. It was basically the same experience if you don't count the fact that four children with an average age of 2.75 kept pestering us for some reason. I had the Plato Ligero because I'm trying to keep it, you know, ligero these days.

Soooort of.

And the big kids picked up the check, which I thought was really nice of them.

Solid move, guys.

Of course, it's not a party without ice cream and cow sculptures and fruitless attempts to wring adorable memories out of said cow sculptures. I didn't exactly hit on "adorable" (eye of the beholder!) but I did capture...um...whatever was happening at this moment:

Feels like the two families are maybe staring in different movies here.

Also caught this conspiracy in action, although I'm not sure if the conspiring parties were Cash and Anna or Anna and her ice cream cone.

Seems like trouble either way.

After that it was time for a weekend visit from my parents and trips to Torchy's and Lucy's Fried Chicken in a celebration of... living in Austin? That's as good a reason as any! (No, it's not, don't care, tacos and chicken for meeeeeeeee.)

The fact that I can order a fish taco for breakfast pleases me immensely. Thank you for understanding my needs, kind taco vendor.

I don't really want to tarnish the following images with my imperfect words, but I will say that normally I don't find fried chicken to be worth the effort it takes to eat it but I will make an exception for this particular chicken any time and I mean any time.

As in, if you show up at 3:30 am with a bucket of this chicken I will sit up in bed and eat it.

And then I will say, "Thank you for the chicken, did you remember to bring me some Sweet Tea Pie?" because I'm pretty direct at 3:30 in the morning.

Sorry, Weight Watchers! Guess I'll just have to keep paying you...wait a minute.

Anna handled the Moon Pie with the solemnity it deserved.

Respect.

Along with my 10th Friendiversary and day-long Living Near Restaurants Is Great party, this weekend boasted an extraordinarily important holiday: National Coffee Day.

Ivy knows what I'm talking about.

I was so teeming with nervous energy moved by the occasion, I deigned to step back into the kitchen and whip up some Banana Coffee Oat Muffins with Chocolate.

That was a super good idea.

I was also pleased to note that my children are right on trend.