Gift Exchange & Dinner Friends Part 1

I went out with my dinner friends on Friday and we had a gift exchange.  I got two gifts. Since these are decorations, I thought I'd add them to my list of things to show.  Isn't this the cutest Christmas penguin you've ever seen?  In its arms, is a throw.  I haven't taken the throw out to look at it yet because I pretty much know I won't ever get it back in the arms the correct way. 

I decided to show the other gift tomorrow.  When I wrote the post about my evening, it turned almost into a book.  You would have had to grab a cup of coffee, hot chocolate, or depending on the time of day, a glass of wine to read it.  So, part one is today. I found out something very interesting about the restaurant we went to after I got home which will be in part two. 

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The drive to the restaurant was very eventful.  I asked my friend who was driving if I could use it for blog material. She said okay but I should call her Magellan LOL.  She is probably one of the best friends I've ever had.  I've known her since our kids were in kindergarten and they are 28 and 27 now.  We've been through the good, the bad, the funny and the ugly together.  Sometime I'll have to tell you about some of the things we've been through but probably only the good and funny stuff ;-). 

So, she picks me up and we start driving and I think we're going to the freeway but then she makes this turn.  I then thought she must have forgot something at home but we didn't turn down her street.  It ended up we were talking so much she was thinking we had to go another freeway (this happens a lot to us). We turned back and got to the right one. 

We were supposed to be at the restaurant at 6:00 which is still rush hour.  There's also a big mall the way we went. Unfortunately, there was so much traffic that we had to stay in the lane where you get off to the mall.  Needless, to say it was bumper to bumper traffic.   

We finally get passed that and it was clear sailing until one friend called from the restaurant.  I told her we were running late and we were close to the exit.  Being on the freeway Magellan was driving pretty fast.  All of a sudden, I start paying attention and instead of driving on the freeway Magellan accidentally starting driving into the rest stop.  OMG, I thought we were going to die because she was probably driving at 55, 60 or 65 mph.  I yelled and said "Magellan you're driving into the rest stop."  LOL, I can only imagine what our friend on the phone thought.  Thankfully, no dying happened. 

We get back on the freeway and we finally reach the exit.  The restaurant is in the town my husband grew up in and I was kinda familiar with where it was but instead I decided to follow the person's directions that planned the dinner so we could see the town square decorated.  In the over 35 years that I've gone to this town, I never once saw them so I thought it would be neat.  Naturally, once we were close we didn't make the correct turn but we figured out how to get back on track saw the lights and ended up at the restaurant.  I was pretty happy when we got there in one piece. 

I would like to think if it wasn't dark when we were going,  we would have had an easier time getting there but knowing Magellan and me who knows LOL.