Game Night and Girl's Night Out

Every month, all our guys get together and have their big "Game Night"--a night where they link up their computers and spend the evening more or less vying for shoot-em-up supremacy while filling themselves on all the junk food and caffeine their wives try to ban the rest of the month. They've been holding these monthly bonding rituals since our early days back in Las Campanas (in Tustin, CA), where some nights would attract as many as 30-40 guys who often played until the sun was coming up. While their numbers don't usually rank anywhere that high these days (I think they average 5-12), and while most are home and in bed between 1-2 am, it's still fun for them to get together, computers in tow, and enjoy a night of just being one of the guys. We wives fully support this event, especially this month when it meant we got to go out and enjoy a real Girl's Night Out.

Most of the time, "Game Night" for the girls ends up being all the girls hanging out at someone's house--with all our kids. While this can be fun, 15+ children running around has a greater likelihood of producing further gray hairs and migraines than producing fun and enjoyable moments of mommy escapism. So, this month, we planned ahead, got our babysitters, and headed out for a night of decadent food and conversation. (Yes, both the food and the conversation were decadent!)

We headed first to Pei Wei for dinner (an offshoot of PF Chang's for those who aren't blessed to be familiar with this yummy establishment) and ate and talked till we noticed the restaurant had gone from standing room only to a few lingering parties. Realizing we had spent way more time at dinner than we had estimated, we were forced to forgo our plans of wandering the cute shops around us and decided to go straight to our next plan--Dessert!! (There's always time for dessert, right?) A Party Platter Pizookie at BJ's seemed to pique everyone's interest (and saliva glands), so we headed there to fill in any available space left in our stomachs with a pizza-size cookie and 9 scoops of ice cream--mmmmm.... I think all that sugar (and just fun company) had its effect on us because we were not exactly the quiet and unassuming group we usually are. (Yeah, right. I know that whatever you were drinking just came out your nose as you read that line and thought about me, Rebekah, and Hilari attempting to be quiet and unassuming.) Okay, so maybe raucous and obsene are slightly better adjectives, but people definitely knew we were there. Despite scaring away a few waiters and almost putting Cary into labor with all our laughing, we had the greatest time and I'm sure we're all looking forward to the boys enjoying their "Game Night" next month so that we can escape for another Girl's Night Out. Do you think we should call and warn the waiters?