Ruth's Chris

Marshall and I spent the morning lounging around the house. I wrote some, he played Call of Duty. By lunchtime we decided to get showered and go run some errands. With our Christmas party only a week away, there was much to do around the house to prepare for it. So we loaded up the car with the bags of clothing we had for Goodwill and all our recycling and headed out. First stop was to rid ourselves of our overflowing recycling can. From there we made a stop at Goodwill to donate some clothes and then we headed over to do some shopping. I had spent most of the morning searching online for the perfect Christmas stocking for Nolan with not much success. So we decided we would see what the shops around town had to offer. Our first stop was the mall to not only grab a snack but see what might be available. Other than the snack, our mall proved to not have much else to offer us. We decided to head on downtown and shop around there a bit before meeting our friends for dinner down there. First, we headed to the cotton exchange since dinner would be across the street we figured it would be a good place to park the car. Although the cotton exchange had lots of cute things to offer, none of them were what we were looking for. After Marshall grabbed himself a cup of java at the Java Dog, we walked down front street stopping at Planet. Always a cool eclectic store, Planet didn't have much in the Christmas front to offer so we quickly moved on. We ended up walking down Water Street on the River Walk where we found ourselves at the City Market. There we saw a store that looked very promising - A Christmas Store! But of course it was closed. I guess we will try again on Monday. With still nearly an hour to kill, we decided to enjoy the unusually warm evening and walk back down by the river all the way to the Hilton. The Christmas tree was all lit up on the waterfront and the Battleship's Christmas lights were on. It was a rather enjoyable stroll down the River Walk.

Finally, it was nearly 7pm so we headed inside the Hilton to await Susan, Stacey and Brian for dinner. We had decided yesterday to dine at Ruth's Chris inside the Hilton. This was mine and Marshall's first time ever eating at Ruth's Chris and I was rather excited. With this pregnancy I have been craving steak. Steak has never ever tasted as good to me as it has during this pregnancy. I never craved steak with my last pregnancy, but I guess there seems to be more and more differences with this pregnancy than I originally thought. For starters, I have yet to develop gestational diabetes. I am not sure if that is more surprising to me or to my doctors. More times than not, if you have it with one pregnancy you will have it with all subsequent ones. That's not to say I won't develop it, I just haven't as of yet. I'm being tested for the third time in two weeks, so we will see what it says then. I have been checking my blood sugar daily though without monitoring my diet and my blood sugar has yet to be problematic despite my carb loaded meals.

Eventually, the gang showed up and we settled in to our table by the Christmas tree inside of Ruth's Chris. The aroma inside was mouth watering. Brian briefed us on how to order food at Ruth's Chris making sure we knew that when ordering a steak, a steak was all you got and that the sides were big enough to share. Susan and Stacey ordered an appetizer and if I had liked scallops it probably would have looked pretty enticing to me, but scallops is not something I will eat - pregnant or not. When the steaks finally arrived they smelled delightful! Never before had I eaten a steak and not smothered it in A-1 sauce or some other steak sauce. After taking one bite though, I knew steak sauce would only ruin this steak. It was by far the best steak I had ever tasted! The baby and I both loved it. The baked potato I got was just as good and the side dish Susan and Stacey got was out of this world. It was more dessert than vegetable - sweet potato casserole. Unbelievable! All in all it was perhaps one of the best meals I've ever had. Loved every bite of it and walked away completely satisfied but not overstuffed.

While Susan, Stacey, Marshall and I all ordered fillets, Brian order the cowboy that came complete with a bone. Lucky for JoJo, because Brian had them wrap up the bone for him so we could take it home to JoJo. When we got home I spread out an old towel for her and gave her the bone and she was in heaven. She used her best Ruth's Chris manners and stayed on her towel while she perched the bone between her two front paws and chewed off every possible bit of meat on the bone first. After all traces of meat were gone, she started in on the bone and went at it for over an hour. Finally, she put it down and we put it up in the fridge for her until tomorrow. I think it is safe to say the whole family enjoyed Ruth's Chris tonight.