Zen Garden

When we temporarily relocated our home to Grand Junction for 2 months following Gulliver's birth, Mark would arrive town every Friday night to stay for the weekend. The first week after we got settled into the rental house, we ordered sushi to-go one night because I simply was not up to going out and facing the world. Every Friday after that, we went out for sushi at the Zen Garden.

The Zen Garden became a very special place for us. It was our routine. It was our time to sit down together and catch up face-to-face after spending five nights apart. It was an attempt to bring normalcy to a not-so-normal situation. It provided a much-needed treat during a stressful time.

I always felt incomplete on those nights. We just had a baby, but he was not there with us. Nor was he at home. It was a very odd sensation. Something was clearly missing. I distinctly recall one of those evenings as we imagined out loud the day our little Gulliver would be dining here with us instead of receiving dinner through an NG tube in the hospital.

That day arrived this past weekend.

We introduced Gulliver to our favorite Grand Junction restaurant on Friday night. We enjoyed a quiet, relaxing dinner - no small feat with a one-and-a-half year old. Gulliver had a wonderful time and exercised exemplary restaurant etiquette.

The waitress brought him a bowl of noodles the minute we sat down. He DEVOURED them! We ordered him an avocado roll, which he enjoyed fiddling with. But preferred to eat the noodles and other veggies we had brought with us. He thought the chop sticks were pretty cool, too.

The meal concluded, of course, with a fortune cookie. 

The Zen Garden was the perfect place to enjoy our first dining-out experience as a family.

I felt complete.