What An Interesting Night!

What An Interesting Night! Rick and I decided to change things up last night and take Jake bowling for the first time. Rick got home at 6:30pm and we headed right out the door. We decided to go get dinner first and Rick suggested Chick-fil-A(amazing chicken sandwiches etc. Love it). I was not in the mood for chicken and I had a craving for Chinese food so we searched for the closest Chinese food restaurant on the GPS and found that it was 2 miles away. They must not love Chinese food here, because in Seattle there were literally 30 restaurants within a 1 mile drive or less.

We headed to the Royal Chinese Restaurant with excitement only to find 20 minutes later (yes, 2 miles here takes 20 minutes because everything is so hilly and I swear that the city planners were drunk when they made the roads!) that the restaurant was closed! UGH! I was ticked.
We decided to just got to the bowling alley 2 miles away and find something to eat near by. We headed over to the bowling alley and one rude attendant later our name was on the list for a lane and we were off to find somewhere to eat. We set the GPS to a Pizza Hut near by and lo and behold... they were closed too.

Jakie was now pretty irritated and said he still wanted pizza so we set the GPS for another pizza hut (when we got there 10 minutes later... )and they were take out only. No dining area!
So now we are all really hungry and ready to eat and there is no where to eat that is open or does not require us to eat in our car. I was beginning to think that a pizza on the tail gate of the van was in order but, luckily, we saw a tiny hole in the wall Chinese restaurant on the way back. We stopped to go in and found a dirty, empty restaurant that only had 2 tables (one open) to eat at. Things were over priced and the conditions looked scary! So, once again, we got into the van with Jake, crying about not wanting to get back in the car, and headed off to go anywhere that was open and clean.

All cravings were out the window at this point! We just wanted to eat somewhere, anywhere. We were all frustrated and I thought," hey, I saw a DQ not to far from here" so we headed in that direction. How many of you think we go to eat there???? Well, if you bet against us eating pizza, you were right! No luck for the hungry Shumways! We pulled up trying to smooth things over (promising Jake a dipped cone if he ate his dinner) only to find, moments later, that they only served desert. They did not offer any food! Since when does a restaurant only serve desert???

I could not believe that we had hit our 4th place and that an hour after we went looking for food we were still hungry. So, with Jake loaded up once again, listening to whimpers of starvation and frustration from Jake, we headed to the one place that could not fail, the one place that is last resort, sure thing, never gonna change, always gonna suffice: McDonald's. We saw the golden arches and with a sure mind filled Jake's head with visions of dinner, ice cream and the "tubes" (the play area). We once again pulled up, unloaded on the back side of the restaurant and rounded the corner to the front only to see that the freaking drive Thru was under construction and that they whole McDonalds was CLOSED! It was closed!! Since when does McDonalds ever close!!!!??? It is always open. Why else would we choose it! I could not believe it. I thought, we are in HELL!! I stopped in the middle of the drive thru and thought, "oh my gosh, Jakie is going to have a nervous break down." I picked him up, mid fit, and rushed back to the van to tell him and strapped him in and broke the news that they were closed. I was so irked that we had just spent so much time finding somewhere to go and we were now going to a place that we had passed over an hour ago! I did not care at this point. I was going to eat paper if need be.

It was now about 8pm and too late to eat and get to go bowling so we abandoned our activity in search of Chic-fil-A and hoped that their play ground area was still open. When we got there, we were in luck. They were both open and Jake went into the play area after a nice meal (we were starving!!). Our dinner conversation had been about us missing great friends like we had in UT and Seattle. We love it here, but we really wanted to meet more people that wanted to spend time and get to know each other.

Rick and decided to join Jake in the play area, to be sure he was not killing the 2 other kids in there, and while watching Jakie, the man next to us (father of the other 2 kids) started to talk to us. He was from the moment he spoke one of the most genuine, interested people I have ever met. Rick and I love people like this. All of our friends are like this in one way or another. He said his name was Dan and we began to talk about work, Utah, Seattle, Pittsburgh, family, kids, food, you name it, we were talking about it. He was probably 8-10 years our senior but still just a fun guy. His wife was home having some alone time and he was taking time with his boys. Jakie played happily with Dan's 2 Children (Johah and Josiah) and we chatted happily. The kids decided to be super heroes and called to each other as it was the others turn to "die".

We ended up letting the kids play for about an hour and 1/2 as we talked and at 9:30pm we realized that we were past bedtime. We told Dan it was a pleasure and on our way out he invited us to dinner to meet his wife and hang out. They have a lovely home here in Jefferson Hills on 13 acres not far from our apt so we were close and could accept the invite. We left sure that we had just met one of the nicest people in Pittsburgh and as we left Rick said, "well, now I know why everything was closed or did not serve food. We were supposed to come later, that's all." I had never considered that but I guess if you wine for something like we did, the Lord can certainly make it happen. In our case, it was just a fun friend to hang out with. I bet his wife is just as fun as he is. We will let you know. I was glad to see that our night was not in vain. Jake had fun and we met a friend.