Breakthrough! On Friday night we treated my parents, Darryn's brother who was visiting from Nelson and our kids to dinner at a great restaurant in the Hutt Valley - Ichiban Teppanyaki. Elliot at 5 usually can't handle restaurants for more than half an hour. He can cope with a cafe where he can scoff a hot chocolate and meringue and then play in the play corner but a restaurant at night is another story. OK, he's only 5 and we could get a babysitter but Cait is 10 and loves to go out as a treat and it's just not a family outing if we don't all go.

Anyway for those of you who haven't experienced a teppanyaki restaurant basically you all sit around a big barbecue hotplate and a Japanese chef comes and cooks in front of you. Not only that but they usually do a bit of entertainment such as juggling condiment bottles, setting fire to something they're cooking, throwing raw eggs for you to catch and tossing bowls of rice to you. Elliot was beside himself with glee as he caught 6 bowls of rice "A World Record" the chef told him. Dinner took about 2 hours and he lasted the whole time. OK so he didn't eat the food but they happily cooked him some fries (even though they weren't on the menu) and brought him some icecream and a hot chocolate. Cait tried some of the food (even the prawns which she normally wouldn't touch) and loved some of it.

Elli tells his he wants to "go to that Japanese restaurant again tomorrow".

We had a lovely night - our first no stress night time family outing. Now that is a breakthrough!