Fancy Date

On Sunday, we took Eliana and Olivia to Michael's Landing in Corvallis for a "Fancy Nancy" date. For those of you who do not know about Fancy Nancy, she is a little girl who is very fancy but her family is not, so she teaches her family how to be fancy and they all dress up like movie stars and go out to dinner. The girls have been asking for a long time to do it, and so we finally did. Steven and I let the girls pick out their own outfits and ours, and we did hair, makeup, and of course, accessories.

The girls were absolutely hilarious during the date. On the way there, we had this conversation about what kind of food there is to eat there. We discussed that it was a fancy restaurant, so they could probably get anything they could think of. Olivia said, "I want french fries!" I asked Eliana what the fanciest food she could think of was, and she said "Parfaits ... that's french for ice cream sundaes." She asked me what the fanciest food I could think of was, and I told her, "Escargot ... that's french for snails." The girls thought that I was kidding, and when I finally convinced them that I was serious, they were horrified and curious. Eliana wanted to know how I ate the shell.

Then, during the drive, there was this hilarious conversation about fairies:

Olivia: "My pet fairy gave me powers, but not fairy powers, restaurant power. Tinkerbell is the only one who shares her power with me. She's the very nicest fairy ... you have to see her, Mommy. It's hard to see her, you have to pray to her to see her.

Eliana: "So you can't see Tinkerbell so you might accidently step on her? If she's so small, how can you see her?"

Olivia: "She gave me that power too!"


At the restaurant, we walked in the door, and the two hostesses were trying so hard not to laugh at our dressed up little girls. Eliana asked to sit outside (although we convinced her to sit inside because outside was yucky seating) and Olivia announced that she would like french fries.

When the waitress asked what we wanted to drink, Olivia said, "Hot chocolate please!" And Eliana asked politely if they had root beer. When the root beer came, it was Henry Wienhards in a bottle, so she got the bottle and a glass of ice. She picked up the glass of ice and said, "This doesn't look like root beer to me!" When we explained to her that she poured the root beer into the glass of ice, her eyes got really big. She spent the rest of the meal pouring little bits into her glass and then refilling it.

Then there was the wonderment of an appetizer! When it came, Eliana said, "You know, this isn't even our dinner!" And Olivia said, "It's our appertizement BEFORE our dinner!"

Eliana ordered fish and chips, and Olivia ordered chicken strips and, of course, french fries. Eliana was disgusted that they served something that looked like ranch but wasn't with her fish (it was tarter sauce).

While we were waiting for our food, Olivia told Eliana, "I'm daddy's lucky child." And Eliana, ever the logical child replied, "You know, we're ALL lucky." And Olivia says, "Yes. But I'm daddy's luckiest." There's this long pause, and then Eliana says disdainfully, "Olivia, that's rude."

Then we ordered a mud pie for us all to share at the end. It was a wonderful evening.

I think the highlight for the girls was going down to the landing and throwing rocks in the river. They thought it was so interesting how dress-up shoes aren't made for walking on the rocks.