A Birthday Dinner with Lukey and Kenzie

Last week, we had dinner at Sarducci's in Montpelier for Lukey and Kenzie's birthday.  Sheila and I have not been going out to restaurants all that often but we do enjoy our occasional meals at Sarducci's.  Sarducci's is near the halfway point between Liza and John's house and our house so we chose Sarducci's for Lukey and Kenzie's birthday dinner again this year.  

Kenzie and Lukey opened their birthday presents at the table before dinner...

Kenzie is running a 5K again this year in June with Gee so she has been running regularly after school.  She wanted a fitness tracker to keep track of her running and, I suppose, to keep her motivated to run.  She video chats with Gee almost every evening and they compare notes on their running that day...

I almost always order the chicken parmesan at Sarducci's and I did this night too.  It was very good, as usual...

Sheila and Lukey had the grilled salmon...

Here are two comparison images...  above, what the camera captures...  below, what the human eye sees.

The area of the restaurant where we were seated was exceptionally dark.  It was so dark that we had great difficulty reading the menu...  of course, we are old so that didn't help...  but it really was exceptionally dark!  The brightest light we had was a candle on the table and some light streaming in from one side doorway to outside.  This photo, below, shows how dark it really was to our eyes.  All the rest of the photos in this blog entry show how well my camera adjusts the light to shoot in the dark!  

Time for some birthday cake!

I don't know what it is about fire and these two kids...  the moment the candles were headed to the table, their eyes locked onto the candles and they stayed mesmerized by the tiny flame until they blew out the candles!  It is like it is impossible for them to look away...  "ooo... fire...  ahhh..."

This restaurant is in the building that used to be the Montpelier train station.  The restaurant sits between the Winooski River and the old tracks which are still used daily by freight trains transporting granite.  In the couple of photos, below, Kenzie and Lukey are walking on the tracks on the way back to our cars at the other end of the parking lot.  

Below is a shot looking across the Winooski River from behind Sarducci's...

Kenzie took my camera to capture a rare photo of Gee and Papa...

We had a great time at Sarducci's for Lukey and Kenzie's 11th birthday dinner!  Dinner was delicious, the dessert was delicious and the drinks were quite good too!  I actually had a few beers that were brewed at a brewery in Northfield.  We were introduced to this particular brewery by our friends, Perry and Kerri, when they visited back in October.  I haven't been drinking much at all in many months due to my health but, when I saw that this beer was on the menu, I knew I had to have a few.  

I'm pretty sure Lukey and Kenzie enjoyed their birthday dinner too!