Thursday, December 29, 2011

Date 19 - All I want For Christmas is You!

Day: Saturday, 12/24/11 - Monday 12/26/11
Type: Christmas
Cost: $$
Planned By: Both
 

Adam and I had a wonderful first Christmas as husband and wife last weekend. We spent a lot of time with family and with each other. We spent time with my family on Christmas Eve, his family on Christmas day, and with each other on the day after Christmas. Most the date part was on Monday, but I will give you a brief description of all the days of our Christmas weekend.
On Christmas Eve we spent time with my dad's side of the family around lunch time. We tried some nice home made beer from my aunt and uncle. I'm not a big fan of beer but my Aunt's raspberry beer actually had a taste of raspberry so I enjoyed it. We exchanged gifts, ate and talked for a couple hours. It was a good time. Next, we spent time with my mom's side of the family for dinner. We tried some home made Niagara wine from my uncle. It was delicious and pretty strong. We had our normal Christmas Eve dinner; Pizza! It was good and the appetizers with it were also tasty. After dinner we played an acting game. It was pretty amusing and our team won! No one was really playing correctly but it was fun anyway. Later we went to Church for Christmas Eve service. I love Christmas Eve service it's one of my favorite parts of Christmas. I really like all the music and my church does a great job with the music! I had a great time singing all the hymns, and there was a cute little boy in the pew in front of us that thought we were hilarious, which we thought was hilarious. We went back to my mom's house and played games then went to bed so Santa could come bring presents.
On Christmas Day we woke up early to go watch our neice and nephew, Madi and Jensen, open up their gifts from Santa. It is very exciting to watch a child get surprised when there are magically presents under the tree. Santa brought them some pretty cool toys, Adam's favorite was the browns themed pillow pets. They each got one so he thought about stealing one. When they finished we went back over to my mom's to open our presents from Santa. I am known for waking everyone up early on Christmas morning so I ran upstairs with a large plastic candy cane and started poking everyone until they got up. It was fun, but Michelle said I could go die in a fire.. that's love. Anyway everyone got down stairs at some point and we started opening presents. Here are some things we got: Money for a new computer, pretty glass coasters for our living room, a dot to dot book, a new vera bradley bag, a shirt, a forever lazy, whiskey stones, a hand made picture frame with our song around our picture, A Christmas Story monopoly, and chocolate covered cherries. We had ham and cheese quiche for breakfast, went and saw my grandma and then went over to Adam's parent's house.
We had a very relaxing time at their house before dinner. We watched a Christmas Magic which was a typical Christmas movie. Adam fell asleep during it, but I thought it was cute. Everyone started showing up around 4 and we ate around 4:30. It was a very nice and delicious Christmas dinner. We sat around talked and opened some presents. We got some nice things from Adam's aunts and uncles. Some Christmas decorations, a picture frame, baking pans, money, and hot cocoa! All the kids played with their new toys for awhile. Then Adam's immediate family opened gifts. We got a soda maker, fleece sheets, a mixer, license plate frame, lottery tickets and a filing cabinet. We got some really nice things, and I'm pretty sure everyone liked what we gave them.
We left for home early on the 26th. We wanted to be home by noon, and we were. We decided to have a lazy day and start using some of our gifts, especially that forever lazy. We had a nice dinner just the two of us. We had ham, cheddar broccoli and pasta for dinner. I made cheesecake cupcakes for dessert. The main part of our Christmas date night was finding and opening our stockings. We put a $15 limit on filling up each others stockings. I found mine first and helped Adam find his. We went back to the living room and opened them. We mostly got candy, but there were a few extra non food items too. It was a lot of fun stuffing each other stockings since we already got the TV for each other for Christmas. For the rest of the night we layed around and watched TV.
 
Without a doubt, it was a great Christmas!

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Date 18 - A Toast to the New Year!

Day: Saturday, 12/17/11
Type: Typical
Cost: $$
Planned By: Adam


We decided not to do a Christmas Themed date night last week.. instead we did a "new" themed date. It was a typical date, lunch and a movie.

We tried something new for lunch; Red Robin. We'd never been there before and they're commercials are so catchy... you know "Reeeed Robin.. Yum!" It didn't seem much different than somewhere like Applebees, but it was a nice little restaurant. They are known for their burgers so we both got a burger. I got the Sauteed Shroom Burger wrapped in lettuce (instead of a bun) with fries. It was very difficult to eat this without the bun. It came in a basket instead of a plate so I couldn't cut it very well and it was too slippery to hold. It was OK though I finished it, I was just glad it wasn't a first date because that would have been embarrassing. Adam got the Red Robin Bacon Cheeseburger with fries. He never tries anything new, but he did ask for more fries since they were bottomless.. it was very exciting!!
We had some time before the movie so we went shopping for some New Year's Eve supplies. We went to Party City and got decorations, accessories and tableware. We're going to have a great black and white party. :)
Movie Time!! We went to see.. New Year's Eve! We enjoyed Valentine's Day a couple years ago and thought we would like this one too. We got there about 10 minutes early.. good thing, too. Adam had to use the rest room and I had to sneak over to the concession stand and buy a medium popcorn and pop! I love popcorn. :) I really dislike previews, and this time was no different. There was a preview for "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" which I hadn't seen or heard about, and it but me in a very depressed mood for the rest of the previews. Luckily, the movie started out with a bang, and I remembered why I was at the theater. It was a pretty good movie, I won't give anything away though. It was comical and sad, but I really enjoyed it as a whole. Adam and I agreed it was one of those movies you watch once and don't really feel the need to watch again, but still it was worth watching.
After the movie we bought a few more things for the party and went home. It was nice to just have lunch and a movie for our date this week. We hadn't done that in awhile and it was a lot of fun.

Ratings:
Red Robin: 7/10 - good food, unlimited fries, nice atmosphere, not really unique
Shopping: 7/10 - normal, a little pricey.
New Year's Eve: 8/10 - Great actors, good plot, don't need to see again.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Date 17: You Can’t Get Too Much Winter in the Winter.

Day: Sunday, December 11th
Type: Casual, Educational
Cost: $
Planned By: Dani

Adam and I went to the Cleveland Botanical Garden's Winter Show last Sunday. I walk by the Botanical Garden every day on my way to work and thought this would be a fun thing to go to.
There was a lot of wintery stuff but there were still some plants that we could see. So we started with the environmental area. First, we went in to the desert green house. There were some animals (lizards) and some plants. They also put out a few different types of poinsettias for the winter show.
The next green house was like a rainforest. The best part were the butterflies. They were flying all around the ceiling. A big blue butterfly was just hanging out on one of the windows for awhile. There were also some other animals in this greenhouse (hedgehogs, spiders) and lots of plants. Many different types of trees and flowers. There was also a canopy walk way so we could look down from the canopy and there was a pretty waterfall and river.
After looking through the greenhouses we made our way back to the wintershow. There were tons of gingerbread houses. There were different divisions that were competing, Professional, Adult and Family/Children. They were pretty impressive, I've never seen such complicated ginger bread houses.







There were also a ton of live Christmas Trees all around the building. They were all decorated differently and were very unique. I've never had a real Christmas tree so it was fun to see them compared to artificial trees.
They put up a modern menorah outside, and there were carolers singing in the cafe area.
This was a fun little winter date, but the price was a little high considering there wasn't actually that much to look at. It did put me in the mood to make a ginger bread house, but we were too lazy.
 

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Date 16 - Deck The Halls

Day: Sunday, December 4th
Type: Christmas
Cost: $$
Planned By: Dani

So this week for date night we decorated our apartment for Christmas. This is our first Christmas together so I was pretty excited. I really wanted to go all out, but that's expensive. Luckily, we got some free stuff from relatives!

First, I tried to make peppermint hot chocolate. It was disgusting. There was too much peppermint in it and the hot chocolate powder wasn't working. While decorating we watched/listened to the CMA Country Christmas special.
We started by putting our Christmas tree up. We got a 4 foot artificial tree from Adam's aunt. It was a great size since we are just in an apartment. It was also pre-lit so we didn't have to worry about buying lights and putting them up. The stand was a bit short so we put it on a box to make room for presents. The garland we used is blue and silver and we got it from Adam's mom. The silver ornaments we bought match the garland really well and the red ones match our red living room. Most of my ornaments are still at my mom's, but I will put them on as soon as I get them. We put the tree topper on together. Its a red boingy glittery star. Its a little big for the tree, but its cute. We are really happy with how the tree turned out, it's adorable!
Next, we made a tree skirt. I mean really I made the tree skirt and Adam helped a tiny bit saying, "yes, that looks good." We got the kit at JoAnn Fabrics. I used a glue gun to put the different patterns on the skirt, and burned myself a few times. I really wanted to make a ruffle tree skirt that I saw on Pinterest, but I had a hard time figuring out what I needed while in the store so I gave up. Maybe next year. While I was finishing up the tree skirt Adam put up the 4 foot fiber optic tree that we also got for free from his aunt, the ceramic light up tree from my mom, and the nativity scene we got for Christmas last year from his other aunt.


We then made our stockings together. Again, I wanted to make really nice stockings, but that will have to wait for another year, too. I should probably learn to sew first. Anyway they were just felt stockings and we put our names, some sequins, a snowflake and cute little characters on them. It was fun, but we both burned our fingers with the hot glue again. 1st degree though so we're fine, don't worry.
I made a simple wreath for the kitchen. It just has green garland, bells and a couple bows on it. The blue in the bows match our blue kitchen. It's pretty cute. We wrapped all the presents we've bought and put them under the tree. We hung up our stockings on our new TV Stand and put out a couple other Christmas decorations.
The most exciting part of this weekend and decorating our apartment was that we got our big Christmas present. Instead of buying each other gifts, we bought a brand new 47" LED 3D HDTV with a 3D blu-ray player. We got it on Saturday and spent all night putting the new TV stand together and then on Sunday during date night we were able to really enjoy it.
We had a great time decorating the apartment. Adam got a little tired by the end and took a nap. Overall, I think its going to be a great Christmas!

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Date 15 - Gobble Gobble!

Day: Thursday, 11/24/11 - Sunday 11/27/11
Type: Family-Oriented
Cost: $$
Planned By: Both
Date night was a little different this week. Because of Thanksgiving we ended up spending the whole weekend with our families and having many "mini dates". So I'll just briefly talk about them all.

Thursday:
We spent Thanksgiving day with my family. We watched the dog show, set up the table at my grandma's, and made a salad. Because we're married I decided I should help out with dinner this year and a salad was the easiest way to go. The salad consisted of lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, tangerines and strawberries. I wanted it to be a healthy and pretty salad and it was. I had planned to put the salad on individual salad plates, but we didn't have enough plates. So it went in a bowl, and didn't really get eaten. Oh well... I tried.

Dinner was good. We sat at the kid table with my sisters and their boyfriends. We tried to play a game to keep the dinner lively, but it didn't work out so well. I think I won anyway.
Friday:
Date night continued on Friday morning with Black Friday shopping in Erie, PA and a buffet breakfast at Old Country Buffet with my sisters. This was the first year Adam and I actually bought something on Black Friday.Our main purchase was a LG 47" 3D LED TV with a 3D blu-ray player. It should be arriving next week!

Saturday:
We went on a double date with Tasha and Bobby. We got lunch at Perkins. It was nice catching up with them since we live in different cities and were all home for the weekend.

Sunday:
Sunday was our second and final Thanksgiving dinner. This dinner was with Adam's dad's side of the family. It was our first year making a dish for this dinner, too. I got a great idea off of pinterest to make a fruit tray. This was not a regular fruit tray.. it was a Fruit Turkey! We made the fruit turkey together and it was a lot of fun. We got cantaloupe, watermelon, grapes, blueberries, pineapple, strawberries, a pear and apples. The body of the turkey was a cantaloupe and the head was the pear. For the eyes we used blueberries and the feet were apple halves. The tail was the exciting part. We bought bamboo skewers from giant eagle and made fruit kabobs. Adam started the tail by putting a layer of apple kabobs. These kabobs only had red and green apple slices and a marshmellow on top. We used the rest of the fruit for the remaining layers of the tail. We put a peice of cantaloupe, watermelon, pineapple, a grape, a blueberry, a strawberry and a marshmallow on each kabob. Adam did most of the sticking the kabobs in the cantaloupe body. For the eyes we used a skewer and a blueberry which also kept the head on the cantaloupe. We finished off the dish with a container of cream cheese fruit dip and surrounding the turkey with extra fruit. When it was finished we were very proud of ourselves because it was adorable! I'm pretty sure everyone liked it at the dinner most of the kabobs were gone by the end. :)
Overall, our first Thanksgiving as a married couple was fun and enjoyable.

Ratings:
Salad: 5/10 - no one really ate it
Black Friday Shopping: 9/10 - we bought most of our Christmas gifts, but getting up at 3:30AM is hard.
Old Country Buffet: 10/10 - the tradition I look forward to every year!
Perkins: 7/10 - good food, a little pricey for the quality
Fruit Turkey: 9/10 - yummy and cute!