Anyway, the Tech Museum was fun, and I hope the boys enjoyed it. It wasn't the usual play-only outings that we have. We were hoping for something a little more educational this time. They seemed to have a good time. I couldn't believe they conked out in the car for a nap on the way there. Their mom encouraged them to do so and they obeyed! Amazing. Absolutely incredible. You couldn't have paid me to take a nap on an hour-long trip. After all, Big A is 10 and Little A just turned 6--they certainly are old enough to handle an all-day outing without the benefit of a nap. I would have been reading or bugging brother D or something. I think Jim would have, too. But the nap really did do them good. I was surprised to see them flagging by dinnertime. We didn't pick them up until 11:30, so it's not even like we went for a completely full day.
We made it to McCovey's about 5:40, ten minutes late for our reservation, but they managed to seat us promptly and the service was quite good as usual. In honor of the restaurant, both boys were wearing McCovey's t-shirts and Jim had on a Nike Giants T that I got him for Christmas. The boys were easy, in that we always know what they will order: mac n' cheese. Those two are mac n' cheese fiends and will pick that over anything else on the menu anytime, any day, especially Big A. While they were in the bathroom, I snuck a bite of Little A's bowl and almost puked. That had to be the nastiest, most processed cheese-tasting stuff I have ever eaten in my life. I would rather have Kraft out of a box hands down. And compared to Jim's mom's recipe? Woefully inadequate. But they loved it. Inhaled it, even. Big A started in on Little A's bowl when Little A started slacking. They didn't eat all of their fries, which was fine. They all did have a bit of beer battered chicken tenders that Jim ordered for an appetizer. Big A can handle 1 1/2 pieces himself. Little A had 1/2 of the littlest piece and Jim the other 2. Big A is all about the ranch dip, and ate the entire condiment cup of it, while Jim sticks to the BBQ sauce. Good thing they don't like the same stuff, or they'd have to order extra with the way Big A uses sauce. He's the same with ketchup and sour cream. That boy loves to dip his food in stuff.
I ordered the Veggie sandwich, which wasn't nearly as good as usual. It's a flatbread pita stuffed with grilled veggies: portabello mushrooms, red bell pepper, eggplant, and onion. And it's got aioli and hummus, but I couldn't taste any hummus and was overwhelmed by the aioli. It was gross. The aioli was so strongly mayonnaise-based that it wasn't very appealing to me. I ended up leaving a lot of the bread behind because it just wasn't very good. I love McCovey's fries, so I enjoyed those very much.
Jim got his usual Grand Slam Burger with fries and holding the mayo. They ended up putting some bistro sauce on it, which looked like Thousand Island dressing. He asked for a new bun and then was in business. Jim also loves their fries. It's a huge burger with two patties and two slices of cheese that he orders as rare as they'll let him, which is only medium. Big A, who absolutely worships his uncle, was super impressed.
Although Little A got a birthday scoop (not like Big A's, which was larger and came with baseball cards), he wasn't able to finish. We opted to go to the San Francisco Creamery one block over to treat ourselves and Big A afterwards. It's a very cute, Fenton's or Swenson's-styled restaurant/ice cream shop. Nice and old-fashioned, the portions are huge and the ice cream homemade. We were immediately seated, although the place was hopping, and we were given waters, the boys with lids on theirs (perfect idea!). Big A ordered from the kid's menu, so we assumed it would be a kid-sized portion. It was a cookie sandwich, where one scoop of ice cream was sandwiched between two cookies with the topping of his choice, and then the top cookie had whipped cream, sprinkles, and a cherry on top. It sounded adorable and perfect for him. He ordered it with cookie dough and was all set.
I would have preferred apple pie ice cream with caramel topping, but since Jim eats the vast majority of our desserts, I decided we should have more Jim-friendly flavors: coffee caramel crunch and caramel white chocolate chip. We went with the "regular" sundae with hot fudge and caramel sundae toppings and the included whipped cream, nuts, and cherry.
Boy were we surprised when they promptly brought out our sundaes. Big A's was nowhere near kid-sized for the scoop OR the cookies.
I mean, it looked amazing, but Jim and I could have split that sucker and been fine with it! Even Big A was overwhelmed to the point that he wasn't sure what to do with it. And no, he didn't finish it, but he gave it a good try. Jim and I picked a little bit at the cookies, which weren't half bad. But there's no way that was kid-sized. And Little A, who I tried to keep entertained with the coloring and crayons available, was so involved in his drawings that he had one bite.
Ours was even bigger. It came out in an old-fashioned sundae dish, absolutely overflowing with toppings. Literally. They put a plate underneath it to catch the drippings.
Needless to say, we were all insanely full of sugar by the time we left. The boys were bouncing off the wall at that point, and we happily delivered them to their exhausted parents just in time for them to get ready for bed.
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