Cheesecake Factory Craveable Caramel

Today on the way home from work, I was going to try and go vote.  However, as I was driving past the building to go to the parking lot, I noticed that the line went out of the building and down the sidewalk and wrapped around the other side of the building!  I only had 30 minutes before I had to get Autumn from daycare, so I will just have to and find a place close to my work and go during my lunch break.

We don’t get much fall time here in Texas, so every time I see these huge bushes that have beautiful fiery red leaves, I have to stop and get a picture.  So pretty!  I love how this bush is in different stages of changing colors from no change in the green to yellow, orange and then red.

We had a bowl of soup for dinner and then Papa & Autumn sat and read a book together.  This is one of my favorite books from when I was a kid…Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now.  Autumn is working on earning a present, and for each book she reads, she gets to take a piece of tape off the back of the present.  When she’s read 15 books she earns her prize.  I’ll share a pic of it when she gets it.

We threw together a girl’s night out, to celebrate my belated birthday.  We went to the Cheesecake Factory and I got what I always get there…the avocado eggrolls.  They are delicious and I love the dipping sauce that comes w/ them.

I was so full, but the girls said we had to get cheesecake since we were at the cheesecake factory.  They told our waiter it was my birthday so he had them write my name on the plate in chocolate and put a candle in the whipped cream.  I told him no singing allowed.

Mary got a hot fudge sundae, but instead of the hot fudge she asked for their caramel sauce.  She had us all try it and it was TO.DIE.FOR!!!  I could smell the butter in it!  It isn’t the nasty waxy kind of caramel sauce.  It tastes just like a liquid version of Christine’s caramels she makes.  Mary said that you can buy it in a jar, so our waiter went to see about that.  He came back and said you can some, and this jar was $8.  The girls bought it for me (even though I told them not to) as a birthday present for me. 

We asked our waiter if he had ever tried it before b/c we were all oohing and aahing about it.  He said he hadn’t.  Every time he came by our table, we asked him if he had gone in the back and tried it yet.  He said he couldn’t b/c they keep all the food on pretty tight lock down.  So, we told him to try some of mine out of the jar.  He kept saying no, but right before we left he stopped by the table to say good bye and he had a spoon.  I was THRILLED that he wanted to try some.  A bus boy clearing the table next to ours just stared as our waiter tried some of the caramel.  I hope our waiter didn’t get in trouble for that, b/c I WANTED him to try it and was happy that he wasn’t too shy not to.

Anyways, we went over to Christine’s to watch a movie.  We had a bunch to choose from but ended up watching The Count of Monte Cristo b/c it’s one of my favorites and Karri had never seen it before.  We didn’t get done until 12:30.  Luckily Mom & Dad had kept Autumn for me, put her to bed on the special bed in their room, and I got to go home and sleep in my own bed all by myself.  It was GLORIOUS!