Gandolphos

The Gandolphos on University Avenue, north of Provo, serves all you can eat pancakes and milk on Saturdays. Even better, with every paying adult, you get two kids to eat free. Sure, I could make pancakes for a lot cheaper than that, milk included, but there's something fun about going out to eat. I've been wanting to take James' kids for awhile, but have never gotten around to planning it. As luck would have it, BJ and I were babysitting them this morning, so we decided to make it a reality. (We were going to go up to IKEA for free breakfast (still running until the 16th if anyone wants to go) but due to multiple things not going as planned, we decided Gandolphos was a much better option.)

I was a little disappointed at first when Hunter declared upon seeing his food that he hated pancakes. (I know this to be false, because when I asked him that first night what he wanted for dinner he yelled, "Pancakes!!!") Nothing we could say or do could convince him to eat them. Bailey finally got him to taste a bite of her pancake (with the bribery of candy later) and he pulled the most disgusted face ever and was more firmly set in his declaration of hating pancakes. Deciding it wasn't really worth it (and knowing that lunch was only a few hours away), I didn't press the issue. About 5 minutes later (of absolutely no prodding from anyone), he sighed and declared that he would eat his pancakes. You would think by the way he said it that he had just volunteered to give his life for a cause or something. Which was made even better by the fact that he was replying to nothing. After one bite he lit up and declared the pancakes as "Delicious!" After two more bites he said he would be done after one more bite. Deciding to milk it for all it was worth, I asked him how old he was. "Five." (He's 4. Though, to his credit, he turns 5 this month.) "Then you can be done after five more bites." (This really is my favorite tactic to get kids to eat just a little bit more. For the record, I'm certain I ate more than 25 bites, so I'm not a hypocrite.) He sighed and agreed. 5 bites later he told us that we all owed him lots of candy because ate five bites!

My favorite part of the entire trip, and the part that made paying for pancakes worth it, however, was tile counting. In order to pass the time, we were having Hunter count the red and green and black tiles right there by our table. Bailey, being silly, then asked Hunter to count all of the white tiles. You know, the walls, the floor, the hall, the bathroom, basically the majority of the restaurant. Hunter was smart and with eyes wide at the prospect, politely declined her offer. Braiden, however, took her up on it. He started out simply counting, but then I reminded him that he was learning his times tables for a good reason. But when he had to start multiplying really large numbers and adding them together (he was doing the restaurant in sections), Bailey decided she wanted to be part of it. Next thing you know my iPod Touch was out for the calculator. BJ and I had long finished our breakfasts and were just watching them walk around the other customers, counting tiles, then leaning over the iPod to do the math. Whenever they declared they were done, we'd point out various other parts of the restaurant to see if they had counted there. Most of the times they had, other times they sighed and went on to count those parts, too. (Honestly, I didn't think they would agree to count the bathrooms and the hall that led to them... at least I didn't make them ask the employees if they could go back to the cooking area to count.)

Total? 2,730 white tiles.

Yes. BJ and I will have nerds for children.