Guns and Thunder

We had our anniversary date last night. It was a bit unconventional, I suppose, but we had a fantastic time! After dropping the kids off at some friends' home, we headed out on our first "no kids" date in probably 10 months. We gotta get out more!

We headed first to a nondescript pawn shop/gun range for a little target practice. Now, I have only been shooting once before, and that was a good six years ago. I was a little nervous, but Grant had given me a good lesson on gun handling again and I knew it would be fun.


We used his 9mm Beretta that looks like this. Pretty nifty firearm, eh? I shot four magazine (10 bullets each, for all you non-gun people out there) and he shot six. We were running short on time at the end because the shop was closing, and he's a much faster shot than me.
Well, I have to say, although I didn't hold a candle to Grant's shooting, I did pretty darn well. Most of my shots would have done significant damage to a live target, anyways.
We'll be going back again, much sooner than six years for sure!

Next, we headed to the Outback Steakhouse, one of our favorite places...which was actually the place of our last date, now that I think about it!


Ever had one of these? This, my friends, is a Bloomin' Onion, one of the greatest culinary achievements of all time. Magnificent, lightly spiced and breaded then deep-fried onion with a succulent sauce....ummmm.

So that was the appetizer. We only finished half of it. Gotta save room for dessert, folks. The dinner was good, Grant's was better than mine, but the highlight of the experience was the.....

Chocolate Thunder From Down Under. Oh my merciful heavens, this dessert is wicked. Okay, so it has 1220 calories. We won't even think about the 78 grams of fat. We split it, okay? (not like our last date, when we went for dessert only and polished off one so fast that we had to order another one. My excuse? I was several days overdue with Annika. A pregnant woman's gotta eat!)
So it's this warm, dense, dark chocolate brownie studded with pecans, topped with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, and rich fudge sauce and chocolate shavings. Whew, did I just gain a pound thinking about it?

Quick side story. Years ago, when Grant and I were swing dancing fiends, we stopped at the Outback near downtown Nashville (after a dance) for dessert before our hour trek home. We ordered our usual Chocolate Thunder From Down Under and coffee and waited. And waited. And waited. The restaurant was practially empty, we couldn't figure out what was taking so long. When our dessert finally appeared, we stared in shock. The ball of ice cream was only half a ball, as the rest of it was melted soup around the brownie. Our waiter disappeared before we could even say anything. We kinda shrugged and dug in, and Grant commented, "Wow, it looks like it was left under a heating lamp!" We had a good chuckle and kept eating. Apparently someone heard him, because in minutes the manager was at our table, apologizing profusely for the melted mess and told us it was free. We mildly objected, since we had indeed eaten the dessert with no complaints. No, he insisted that it was free AND he gave us a certificate for a free appetizer or dessert the next time we came to Outback.
Have to say, that was our most profitable restaurant experience ever!

All to say that we thoroughly enjoyed our date (Thanks Ben and Ellen for babysitting!) and hope continue our tradition of seeing superhero movies for our anniversary next weekend by seeing the new Batman movie.