Dates – Date Nights Palm Beach

My wife and I used to joke that we would go on dates to Lowes when remodeling our past houses. That is to say that a “date” does not have to always be a special or expensive restaurant to make it amazing. In fact, some of my fondest memories over the years with my wonderful wife have been the simplest of dates.

This weekend we decided that after a year of Covid and other 2020 craziness we could really use some holiday spirit. And what better way to do that than some old-fashioned holiday decorating. You know, the kind you see in a Hallmark movie where they end up throwing snowballs and drinking hot cocoa while they magically decorate the tree with 100 year old family heirlooms and top off with the angel where there happens to be a perfectly cut branch so it just pops right on, LOL, it’s never as easy as they make it look but it is just as fun.

We started out with sleeping in (until at least 8am…. I know, we’re hardcore 😊) before getting our holiday totes out of the garage and then off to an easy lunch at California pizza kitchen attached to the mall where we ordered some white corn guacamole and chips to start with a Bloody Mary and Sangria (yep, totally necessary for the holidays). Then we ordered my favorite pizza, the California Club with applewood smoked bacon, avocado, and grilled chicken (mmmm).

After the nice lunch we decided we needed to do some Christmas shopping at the local Wellington mall. My family jokes when they open something from me with “glad you like it” suggesting that I don’t even know what I got them because secretly (or not so secretly) my wonderful wife actually does all the shopping and puts my name on it. The truth is that each year I insist on going around and shopping with my wife where we find maybe 10% of all the gifts and then I get to claim that I did the shopping too. This apparently drives my wife crazy…. Love you hunny. So, with all the holiday shopping done (he he) we headed home to start decorating.

Our previous home was difficult to put up all the exterior holiday lights and decorations and would take several days to complete. Fortunately, our current home is a piece of cake and we have all the exterior lights done in about an hour (and that includes the back yard)! Then for the easy part, right? The interior always goes pretty smoothly. Well, almost always……

We realized pretty quickly that our beautiful artificial tree has some issues this year. We purchased it at Walmart of all places about 7 years ago and have never found one as nice since. Although we prefer natural trees its just not practical with our pets who prefer to drink the water out of the base. This tree has the most realistic branching and natural look (including little pinecones) we have ever seen. Last year we had issues with power surges and a bad breaker so roughly a third of the integrated lights were burned out and would not light even after we changed out many of the bulbs. We decided instead to replace all the lights with more modern variable color LED (how hard could that be…. Ha-ha). So, after 4 hours of cutting and removing all the old lights we bought 8 sets of LEDs and started stringing. OK, so it was 2 days instead of the 1 we expected but turned out beautiful.

Once we had all the lights on, we put on some holiday music and made some hot cocoa (see, Hallmark movie) and started decorating. This takes a while and there is something special about doing it together. We always get glitter everywhere and end up having a great time. The new star we chose was about an inch too tall so I had to do some customization (see, I told you its never like what you see on TV) but it turned out great. We then spent some time doing some wrapping of the gifts. I still can’t do less than 4 pieces of tape but I hope to someday make it to “3 bits of sticky tape” like Bryony from one of our favorite Christmas movies “Arthur Christmas” (highly recommend). And finished off our holiday date with filing out cards for friends, family, and coworkers.

Although it sometimes gets a little crazy during the experience, I really love doing it and spending time with my wife. Its also nice to come home to a beautifully decorated home that makes me smile every night. Now, for a month of enjoyment, happy music, happy people, and holiday movies.

Happy Holidays to you and yours!

Travel Edition – Key West, FL

Yes, that really is the name of a restaurant in Key West. Actually, it is specifically a dessert restaurant. We weren’t sure what to make of this when we first saw it but after seeing their clever menu we decided to give it a shot, and we were glad we did. This is just a fun and romantic experience centered around a total dessert experience.

I don’t know if you have ever attempted to drive in downtown Key West but it is not for the faint of heart. Between the scooters, golf carts, and pedestrians (most of which were less than sober) it can certainly surprise you at any moment. So, we prefer to use Uber or Lyft while in town. It’s very convenient and there are plenty of quality local drivers, so I don’t think we ever waited for more than 2 minutes for a ride anywhere, which was nice. You can walk and explore as much as you like then just hail a Lyft when you are ready.

We took our Lyft from the pier to “Better Than Sex” and found several couples waiting out front (on a Thursday night in the middle of COVID) so we highly recommend reservations. There were several people that were getting desserts to go (which typically means they have excellent food) but the experience is so good you should take your time and do the full sit-down experience. We were greeted immediately and found a seat in the small and slightly crowded waiting area. They called us and we walked through the opening to a dimly lit dining room with separated and cozy individual tables that were more like little private booths. The walls were painted a deep red, the ceiling had tin decorative tiles, the booths each were lit mostly with candlelight, and there was an eclectic collection of different chandeliers everywhere. It was clearly intended to create a cheeky and romantic atmosphere and landed the intended effect.

The server came by our private area and offered us digital menus which I appreciated since I have trouble reading menu’s in dimly lit restaurants (it was also hard to get good pictures). My wife tells me its because I am presbyopic and my eyes cannot flex like….blah, blah, blah. I know its just a nice way of telling me I’m old (specifically because she always gets a sly smile and a twinkle in her eye when she is telling me that, I think she finds it funny) and I think its cute when she teases me. The digital menus are nice and we took a few minutes laughing about the descriptions they use to describe the drinks and desserts (this creates a bit of levity and some fun banter with your date so I don’t want to spoil it for you but take some time and enjoy their creativity and word play).

We ordered our drinks which were decadent and fun. I ordered the “Late night Rendezvous” which is nice coffee with an Amaretto licker and rimmed with your choice of chocolate, and my wife ordered the “French Kiss” which is Ayala Champagne in a caramel covered glass with bruleed sugar. We then ordered the “Between my red velvet sheets” red velvet cheesecake on a cookie dough crust with cream cheese frosting and the “Popcorn Pimp” vanilla bean cheesecake on a sugar cookie crust and a salted popcorn chocolate bark with caramel sauce. I did say decadent right? It was all excellent and I will let you read the real (slightly blush inducing) descriptions on your own…….

Overall, this was an excellent experience with wonderful desserts and a great atmosphere that you can’t help but enjoy. Plan to spend some time here and enjoy! Highly recommended.