Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Date 2 - Take Me Out to the Ball Game!

Day: Friday, 8/26/11
Type: Sporty/Casual
Cost: $
Planned By: Adam

Adam planned date number 2! This date was casual and sporty. It was also very cheap. Because we are both big fans of baseball and our home town team Adam decided to take us to a Cleveland Indian's baseball game, paid by Progressive. The tickets were free, the food was free, and the entertainment was great!

We started the date by meeting in downtown Cleveland after work. As we walked to Progressive Field together we saw the Avengers movie scene. I thought it just looked like road construction, and it is probably just as or more annoying than road construction.

After gawking for about 30 seconds at nothing we continued to the ball park.
Progressive had a huge tent for all of their employees with free food, music, drinks, and more.
For dinner we had an All American meal: hot dogs, potato salad, and potato chips. We could have an endless amount of food until 8PM. I think Adam ate 7 hot dogs overall.

After eating we made our way to our lower level, left field seats. Our seats were in foul ball territory, and I was a little nervous that I would get hit in the face, but none came to us.


So for those of you who weren't a big fan of the Indians in the 90s, something very exciting happened at this game. Jim Thome came home. Jim Thome played for the Indians from 1991-2002. He was part of the team when we were actually winning games and had a chance at the world series. He is one of Cleveland's favorite athletes. He has has the most home runs out of all Indian's players in history. Another fun fact is that he has had the most walks out of all Indian's players. The staff at the field decided to give out Welcome THOME signs to the crowd. We were very excited! The staff decided to do a video of some of Jim Thome's greatest moments while on the Indians. When they announced his arrival the first shot of Jim Thome was him lying on the ground getting his legs stretched out. I don't know about you guys, but that would be embarrassing. It was really funny, but the video was actually very touching and full exciting moments.


It was a close and exciting game. We were playing the Kansas City Royals. They are last in our division, but we still struggled to get some runs. It was tied 1-1 in the 8th. We had the bases loaded, and the Royals walked in our winning run! Not as exciting as winning with a home run, but hey a win is a win. Jim Thome did not have a very good hitting night, actually it was really bad.

After the game were the Country Music Night fireworks show. Adam and I really like country music so we enjoyed it. The fireworks were also very exciting and flash!

Overall, is was fun and exciting date!

Ratings:
Food: 10/10, free and good!
Game: 9/10, the winning run could have been more exciting, but we won!
Fireworks: 10/10, very good music and a great fireworks show!

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Date 1 - Ahoy Matey!

Day: Saturday, 8/20/11
Type: Typical, Themed
Cost: $$
Planned By: Dani

Weekly date night has officially commenced. Our first date night was planned by me. I decided to make it a themed date night, and chose Caribbean so we could possibly relive our honeymoon. It was a casual and typical date night, with nothing too spectacular planned for the night. We had dinner, went to a movie, and had a couple drinks afterward.

First, we went to dinner and decided to go to Bahama Breeze in Orange Village, OH.
This restaurant is Bahama themed, and is probably one of the best Caribbean themed restaurants in the area considering we're in Cleveland, OH. It is a chain restaurant, but doesn't have too many locations. We thought we would try it out since we'd both never been there before, but pass by it all the time. The waiters and hosts were all wearing a floral button down shirt, I was waiting for them all to break out in to song and dance, but that didn't happen. The decor and music was appropriate for a Caribbean themed restaurant. We were seated right away, but no one came to our table for 10-15 minutes to take our drink orders. We were a little irritated by this because we were already running late on our date schedule. Finally, someone picked up the slack of the waitress we were suppose to have. Had they waited another couple minutes we may have just left (this has happened to us before). So we were ready to order our food at the same time as drink orders since we had so much time to look at the menu. We both just got water, boring I know. I ordered the Chicken Santiago.
This dish was a piece of grilled chicken with peppers, onions, and salsa on top. The chicken was very good and juicy. The vegetables and salsa on top gave it a nice kick. It also came with some interesting type of potatoes. I'm pretty sure they were fried, but had a sweet taste to them but also seemed undone. They were OK, but Adam ate a bunch of them for me. Adam decided to order the Buttermilk Fried Chicken.
It was layered with spinach, tomatoes, and melted cheese. On the side were garlic mashed potatoes and roasted corn salsa. Adam seemed to enjoy it. There were many other dishes to chose from. They had a fresh fish menu, but we both don't like seafood. They had a wide variety of appetizers, but like I had said earlier we were running late. We both really enjoyed the food and agreed that it seemed to have a Caribbean taste to it. After finishing our meals we were still angry about having to wait so long for service until the manager came over with our waiter and offered dessert on the house. We happily agreed to having free dessert. I had the Dolce de Leche Cheesecake and Adam had the home made Key Lime Pie.
The cheesecake was delicious and came with fresh fruit. Adam really enjoyed his pie. We had just enough time to finish our dessert and leave to get to the movie on time.

Because we are trying to save money we decided to go to the Willoughby Hills dollar theater, or known as Phoenix Theater's Movies 10.
The price of a movie after 6:30PM is only $2.00, which we thought was perfect. In honor of our Caribbean date night we saw Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. We have seen all of the other Pirates of the Caribbean movies, but hadn't seen this one yet. Thankfully, Johnny Depp was still in the movie and was as funny as ever. There were some pretty good action scenes and of course a couple love stories. It was overall a good movie, but it doesn't really compare to the first two. I wouldn't have wanted to pay $10.00 to see it, but it was well worth the $2.00!

After the movie we came home for our favorite Caribbean drink, a MARGARITA! Why pay $8.00 for it at Bahama Breeze when we can get it for free-ish at home, thanks to our awesome Margaritaville Margarita Maker.
They were delicious as always. We also enjoyed playing a game with our tropical drink playing cards that we purchased on our honeymoon. Overall the date was a lot of fun, and stuck to the theme. I can't wait to see what Adam has planned for next week!

Ratings:
Bahama Breeze: 8/10 - good service once it got there, good atmosphere, delicious and reasonably priced food.
Phoenix Theatres Willoughby Hills Movies 10: 9/10 good price, comfortable seats, a little out of our way
Margaritas: 10/10 - always wonderful :)