"It's been a long time, we shouldn't'a left you without a dope beat to step to..."

Yeah, I know the title is a little ridiculous, but that's the second thing that came to mind when I thought "It's been a long time." The first was "It's been such a long time, I think I should be going..." Not super appropriate for a comeback.

I'm sorry that it has been such a long time. I know all five of you were on pins and needles. The truth is, the first trimester absolutely KICKED. MY. BUTT. I slept for 14 hour stretches, I threw up everything, and I lost 15 pounds between that and my lack of appetite. But the second trimester, thank God, has been much better. I have my energy back, I can eat (some days like a trucker, although my only cravings are cucumbers and Italian food), and I've gained back 6 pounds.

I still, I might add, at -9 lbs from where I started, feel like a whale. So when my husband told me tonight that I'm beautiful and he wanted to take me out to dinner to show me off (the man has a wonderful self-preservation instinct), how could I resist? I started looking at restaurants online, wanting to branch out a bit. I checked Applebees first. Every forum review by a person with Celiac detailed how they got horribly sick. So I tried Outback.

Holy mother of food. They have a HUGE gluten free menu. It's about 1/2 of the actual menu, and they even have notes about things like asking for your salad to be mixed in a separate bowl. It was beautiful. I nearly cried (a super common occurrence at this stage).

Our waitress, first of all, was amazing. Her name was Allison, and as soon as I said I had Celiac, her immediate response was "Would you like a gluten free menu?" Amazing - they knew what Celiac was. So then we ordered. I had the filet and lobster tail (yes, I know I'm pregnant - lobster is low mercury and is safe to eat a couple times a month), along with green beans (no seasoning, as the menu suggested), and garlic mashed potatoes. Everything was amazing. I then had to get the Chocolate Thunder from Down Under, which has apparently always been GF - it's a flourless brownie. 

All in all, it was so amazing that I even called over the manager to tell her how great my experience was, and how great Allison was (she even wrote "congratulations" on our bill because I mentioned the baby when justifying wolfing down my entire dinner in about 2 minutes). 

I think Outback is now my premier dining destination. They have way more variety than any other place I've been, the food was amazing, and the service even more so. I'm going to go slip into a food coma, while you all check out their GF menu here: