Date Night!

 

The Zombie Queen

 

Steve and I went on our first real date night last night. We've gone to the movies a few times while one of the sets of grandparents watch Gus, and we've even left him with his cousins in the care of my parents while we double dated with my twin brother and his fiance, but we've never left Gus alone with a non-family member for any period of time. EVER.

A few weeks ago, Steve sent me an email with a Living Social deal for "Terror on the Trail" at Sims Lake. He asked if I was interested and if I thought we could find a sitter for Gus so we could go and enjoy a night to ourselves. I checked it out and thought it looked fun, so I told him to go ahead and order the deal. For $15, we got two tickets for last night.

He contacted our neighbor to see if their daughter would be available to watch Gus, but since it was Hooch's Homecoming, she was not available. I asked Lesley if she'd be willing and to my utter surprise and delight, she said yes! Gus knows her (and Logan and Jason) and I thought it'd be a 50/50 chance that he'd be okay. 

We headed to their place at 7 and I took his iPad and some popcorn for her to have as a last-ditch effort should he be very distraught. He was interested in all their toys and went into the livingroom with Jason and started playing with the shape sorter. We took it as a perfect time to leave, and said our goodbyes to Lesley. She promised to call me if there was a problem.

We headed to Suwanee and we had no idea where we'd eat dinner, but figured that we could find something close to Sims Lake. I have to say, there's not a lot to choose from in that area. We ended up at Red Brick Oven (a Mediterranean-style place) and thought we had plenty of time to enjoy our dinner (it was 7:40ish when we arrived). Our food didn't come out until 8:30 and we had to be at our assigned tour time at 8:40. 

We managed to eat a bite and then grabbed boxes for our food and headed around the corner to the park. We had just enough time to get to the gate, use the bathroom, and get checked in just in time. 

Our group had three obnoxious teenagers... maybe they were in college, but I'm thinking they were probably not in college because their mom was waiting in the car to pick them up when we were finished. They were awful. 

The premise was to walk around the lake on a guided tour and we made several stops and heard various tales of terror from actors from the Aurora Theater. We were amazed at how awesome the actors were. We honestly were expecting teenagers to be dressed up and jump out at you along the trail, but it was definitely classier. At the beginning of the tour, the Zombie Queen told us that she had trapped seven souls and they would be sharing their story with us. All the stories were to align and all make sense at the end (since I'm a visual learner, I didn't follow the story at all- it was all oral). Thankfully, Steve got it and was able to explain it all to me.

 

The Zombie Queen posing for pictures

 

The first trapped soul was that of Lucy Sims

 

A zombie prom queen led us from Lucy to the next soul

 

Each of the story tellers had their own way of telling a story. This one was really good... all were good except for one guy, he just wasn't great.

 

This guy was awesome. 

 

Not all the trapped souls allowed us the opportunity to take pictures, but a few did. This guy was just creeeeeepy. His story was that he killed a family and then assumed their name and went on to live as them. His story had a lot of gore and at the end he "cut" his hand and blood ran down his arm.

 

Another zombie teenager leading our group

The tour was about an hour and a half and we were entertained. It wasn't "scary" but we had fun. I like that no one jumped out at us or chased us with chainsaws. :-)

While we were out, Lesley sent me two texts:

1) at 7:22

 

"Look mama! No tears! He's looked for you once or twice, but he's not upset at all! Have fun!"

 

Totally made me relax (we were just down the road when she sent it). I felt at ease and so glad that he wasn't flipping out.

2) at 7:47

 

"Still okay!"

It made me so happy to know that Gus was good. I trust Lesley and Jason or we wouldn't have asked them to watch Gus for us. I'm just glad that he had a good night and wasn't a problem for them. She said that Logan went to bed at 7:45. LOL.

We got to her house at 10:15 and Gus was excited to see us. She never had to break out the iPad or the popcorn and he didn't eat any of the snacks that I packed. She said he sat for a bit and watched tv and looked like he could fall asleep, but then he perked right up.

I think date night is overrated, but it's nice that if there's something that kids cannot come to (like a haunted walk), it's nice to know that we have someone that we can count on to watch Gus for us. We owe them a night of sitting for Logan. We also saved $$ because she watched Gus for free and we'll watch Logan for free. :-)  Perfection!