Eating Out While Eating In

We've never been the type of family that was afraid to take our kids out to eat. Since my oldest could hold himself up, he has sat at the table with us. My wife and I figured that the sooner he learned how to act while out at a restaurant, the better we all would be in the long run.

We were perfect parents... then my second son came along.

He was a nightmare wherever we went. You never knew when he was going to have a meltdown, you never knew what kind of food he wanted to eat, and (back before tablets and iPods) you never knew if we had the right color crayons. Eating out with him was an adventure.  In fact, we went to France when he was three and he was so terrible that we vowed to never travel with him again.  Even now at nine, he still has his moments.

We really do like to eat out. I'm not the most adventurous cook and if we want to live on the wild side  at least food wise, we have to let someone else do the cooking.  Of course eating out too much can get expensive and most of the time the kids don't eat what you put in front of them.  Like most parents having a restaurant quality experience at home is something that we would love to do. So we thought that we would bring a steakhouse to OUR house... at least once anyway.

We have all the fancy linens, candles, and fine(er) china; we just never use them outside of MAYBE Christmas and the odd Valentine's Day when I turn into Bobby Flay for a day.  Then I'll spend all day making some romantic meal for my wife and of course the kids end up hating everything.

The hardest part about all of this is that my kids are getting to the age where when they want food, they want it five minutes ago.  They don't want to wait the hour (or two) it might take for the food to cook. Normally I would ply them with goldfish crackers or popcorn to get them through until dinner.  But since we were having a fancy dining experience I thought soup would be in order.

Now normally soup is one of those all day things, but when you have kids, who has all day?  Fortunately Idahoan® Premium Steakhouse® Potato Soups makes the whole soup making process VERY easy. All I had to do was pour the contents of the package into water, heat it up, and stir.  Within five minutes we had a nice creamy delicious potato soup. You wouldn't think that something that comes out a bag would taste so good, but the soups are made with 100% real Idaho® potatoes and they deliver the flavorful, slow-cooked taste of restaurant quality potato soup.

All I had to do was dish out the soup and sit down and eat it.

Unfortunately this was the moment that my wife told me that she was going out to dinner with her sister and that my son was having a sleepover with a friend.  So our fancy family night eating in, turned into anything but that.

A photo posted by John Willey (@jdubs44) on Jan 17, 2017 at 12:37pm PST

At least I tried and didn't waste all day making soup.

Life of Dad and Idahoan® Premium Steakhouse® Potato Soups are looking to crown the #KingOfSoup.  If you think I have what it takes to wear that crown, please follow the hashtag on social media.  Also follow Idahoan® Foods on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to show your support.

**This was a sponsored post for Life of Dad and Idahoan® Foods.  I was compensated, but all opinions are my own, unless my wife tells me otherwise.

John Willey - Daddy's in Charge?

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