We finished up with a great family breakfast after our baby's 1 year check-up. The restaurant was just around the corner from the office and the perfect stop for a late breakfast. Pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausage and fresh-squeezed orange juice. Delicious! It was a fun family moment with good, belly-filling food, talking about how lucky we were that our baby was healthy and happy. The baby was waving, turning up the charm as he smiled to all of the people around us.

My husband left to pay our bill. When he came back, something was seriously wrong.

"Is his face getting red and splotchy?" I asked my husband, just to make sure I wasn't seeing things. "Yeah, I think those are hives" he replied. As we stood there studying our baby's face, we could see the hives growing bigger and turning into little pustules. "Holy freaking crap! Is he having a reaction!? Quick! Let's drive him back to the Doctors office and get him checked out!" I tried not to scream.

This was our last visit at The Egg & I when we discovered that our baby (now The Preschooler) was allergic to eggs. It was a sad day. Not just because our life changed quite a bit, having to read labels very carefully and carrying Benadryl wherever we went, but also because we couldn't go to breakfast restaurants due to cross-contamination. You know, The Egg & I? Egg allergy? It wasn't going to work out. We missed out on breakfast dining for a long time.

3 years later, The Preschooler is allergy-free, having outgrown his food allergies after a strict elimination diet. Now? We're making up for lost time at breakfast. The weekend breakfast at home is a big deal to us and so is going out to eat at breakfast joints. It's a weekend tradition that we rarely skip. This means trips to The Egg & I where we don't worry about hives and allergic reactions any longer.

The Egg & I is a breakfast/lunch chain restaurant that started in Fort Collins in 1987 with Rayno and Patty Seaser. It started as a local family-run restaurant on College Avenue and in 2005, grew into a franchise. There are two locations in Fort Collins now, the original on College and then one on the east side of town off of Lemay and Harmony. With 29 restaurants, many awards that range from recognizing low turnover rates to Best Breakfast in Fort Collins and generous philanthropy in the community, The Egg & I has blossomed into a successful Fort Collins legacy where people love to work and families love to eat...

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feastingfortcollins.com