Vacation Rules

Tonight I am writing you from Kansas City, well, just outside of it in Bonner Springs.  We are enjoying a mini-vacation this Memorial Day weekend.  We started the journey at one of our favorite places on Earth,

Can we just move in please?  We wouldn't be any trouble, we promise!

Pizza West.  What????  You have not been to Pizza West?  Crazy Talk!  Let me tell you about it.   Simply put, Pizza West is the bomb-diggity.  They have SEVEN pinball machines to play!  That alone is enough to get us to make a trip to Shawnee, Kansas.  But in addition to pinball goodness, they have quality pizza.  It’s rather delish.  Is it a family place?  Sure!  Every table is covered with white paper which begs to be colored with the complimentary crayons provided.   Is it a good place to go and watch sports?  You bet your sweet bippy!  Little televisions at each table invite you to tune in and watch the game while their beer selection is ready to meet your needs.   The place is decorated in a fun and energetic fashion, with upside-down lamps as lighting and a train that runs up above.   We are such big fans of this place that Gavin had to buy a shirt from them.  He wore it when he participated in Camp Gizmo a few months back, they created a Harlem Shake video and we sent the owners of Pizza West the link.  Now whenever we come into the place they yell "Hey Harlem Shake Kid!" and give him quarters to play pinball.   As you can tell, I am a fan of this place, it’s pretty awesome.

Now normally when we go to Pizza West, we get a couple of pizzas, cheesy garlic bread, and a big ol’ desert.  We eat as much as we can possibly stand, take the rest home, and probably have more of the left-overs for an evening snack.    I’m not proud of this, but it is what it is.  Add to that the fact that we are on vacation (normally a free-for-all junk food spree and second dinner extravaganza), the odds are that we are going to make this visit to Pizza West one for the record books.  Well it was, but in a much different way.   You see we have been good this week, I mean REALLY good.  Brandon has dropped 14 pounds and has had to tighten his belt two notches this week.  I am a bit behind him at 9 pounds but I am very happy with that.   Before we got to Pizza West tonight, Brandon looked up their menu and planed out our order.  Instead of ordering two pizzas, we got one, and that one was a medium.   We split the pizza up between the three of us and we had salads from the salad bar before we ate the pizza.  It was delicious, it was worth the wait (been planning this trip for most of the week), and the best part, we weren't miserable after we ate.  We didn't stuff ourselves so full that we were in pain.  Instead we got just enough and were able to go on with our evening. 

Will we always have that kind of self control?  Probably not.  But tonight we did and that was a major accomplishment.