Monday, September 26, 2011

Date 6 - Home is where the ART is!

Day: Sunday, 9/26/11
Type: Casual/Creative
Cost: $
Planned By: Dani & Adam
 
For this week's date we decided to make some artwork for our bedroom. We needed to add some color to our brown and white room, so this was a great way to make our room better and spend time together! We also ate a pizza!
First, we put the pizza in the oven. It is a pepperoni large pizza from Sam's Club. Then while the pizza was baking we spray painted the canvases. We painted them brown to match our bedroom's decor. We had to spray paint them on our balcony. Of course we could have gone outside, but that would have been too difficult.



While waiting for the spray paint to dry we ate our pizza! It was pretty good pizza, a lot of cheese. There could have been some more pepperoni. While eating the pizza and waiting, a freak rain shower blew through and almost ruined our canvases! It's OK we saved them.
When we finished the pizza and the paint was dry we brought everything inside to start the real art. We picked lime green, yellow and white paint to accent our room.We each took a canvas, and started painting. Adam decided we should paint swirls. Half way through his painting he didn't want to do swirls anymore. I couldn't switch so they are pretty different paintings, but they are unique!
 

It was a lot of fun to paint together. I tried to paint Adam's arm, but apparently he didn't want to play because he yelled at me. Adam finished way before I did because I'm a perfectionist and had a hissy-fit about a spot I messed up. I fixed it the best I could for being an amateur artist. Adam was extremely proud of his painting, as he should be, it was very good! Before we could put the art on the wall it had to dry. We waited until the next day to mount them. I would have to say it really brightens up our room, and I am very happy with how they turned out!
before
after     


















Ratings:
Sam's Club Pizza: 7/10 - tasted like pizza, good cheese, needs more pepperoni
Art: 8/10 - creative and fun, could have been more interactive

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Date 5 - You're Corny!

Day: Saturday, 9/17/11
Type: Casual/Outdoor
Cost: $
Planned By: Dani
So before you get excited for this entry.. this date was a bust. I had planned to have a picnic in the park followed by wondering through a corn maze. I've always wanted to go through a real corn maze so I looked up a corn maze near us. I wanted to go to the Lake Metroparks Farm Park, but of course they had some festival going on and it was closed to general visitors. We didn't want to pay for this festival so I looked up another place. 



Here was the plan: get Subway meals and eat at the Chapin Forest Reservation in Kirtland, OH. Then go to the Patterson Farm Market for the corn maze.

We got our food. Adam got a Buffalo Chicken sub, with baked BBQ chips and a powerade. I got a tuna sub with an apple and sprite. Adam was in charge of the directions to the Chapin Forest Reservation. He got confused with the directions and took us straight to the Patterson Farm Market. We walked around the place and found a bench to eat our lunch on. The bench had a great view of the lake and surrounding trees. There were quite a few people at this place. We really enjoyed seeing the puppies with their owners. It was a very family-friendly place.

After eating we decided to look around. We walked down stairs the seemed to lead to something, but really only led to a map that had a "Coming Soon" walking path. I think there was a 2.1 mile concrete path, but we didn't want to go for a walk. So we went back up to the market place. We went in the store and looked at the apples, pumpkins, gourds, and doughnuts. We got some delicious free apple cider. We decided not to buy anything because we didn't have any cash. Everything smelled really good though!

So we still hadn't found the corn maze. We walked around the entire place again to try to find it. It was no where to be found. There were 2 play grounds for children but no corn maze. We did see some apple trees though. We were very irritated that there was no corn maze or anything else to do so we left.

When we got home I looked up the website again, and realized we had gone to the wrong place. They had three different addresses on the website and apparently I didn't notice any difference. We decided not to go back out to the correct place because it was probably going to be a bunch of children like at the first place and we didn't really want to deal with that. Maybe we'll find a better corn maze later on to go to!

Ratings:
Subway: 7/10 - just a sub.
Chapin Forest Reservation: ?/10 - never made it there.
Patterson Farm Market: 3/10 - good for a family but nothing really to do for young adults.

Hopefully next week will be better! :)

*sorry for the crappy quality on the pictures this week, my camera is apparently dying. :(

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Date 4 - Mexican, Margaritas, & Movies!

Day: Saturday, 9/10/11
Type: Casual
Cost: $
Planned By: Adam

Date 4 had been planned for quite some time. Adam was planning an outdoor date, but failed to think of an alternative if the weather didn't cooperate. Of course, the weather did not cooperate and decided to rain all day. He had to improvise and came up with Mexican, Margaritas, and Movies.

Our date started off with a nice hour long drive around the eastern suburbs of Cleveland trying to find a Mexican restaurant. It took so long because the two Mexican restaurants we looked were apparently out of business. At least we got to see some potential neighborhoods to live in for our future.

So we actually ended up going to Don Tequila in Willoughby, right down the street from our apartment. You may wonder why didn't just go here to begin with, well, it's a little shady looking from the outside. We were really set on Mexican for dinner by this point so we decided to take a chance. The inside was actually pretty nice. There weren't many people there eating for being right at dinner time, but it was a nice little place.

So like any good Mexican restaurant they gave us free chips and salsa! They were delicious. We love home made salsa and chips, way better than store bought. We started off by ordering a half pitcher of lime margaritas. The margaritas came back yellow, which we thought was strange. The most important thing to know about these margaritas is that they are super strong. They would give Rio in Athens a run for their money on how much tequila they put in the drink. I guess that's why the name is Don Tequila.


We both ordered the same thing. A combination dinner with two hard beef tacos, an enchilada and chile con queso. We get this combination dinner at most Mexican restaurants we visit.









After finishing dinner Adam decided to buy a red tootsie pop for dessert for 25 cents from the restaurant!
The movie portion of the date was at home. We brought the movies to us! We got pillows and blankies to make the couch extra comfy, made some more margaritas, and got a big bowl of popcorn! We decided to watch The Good Guy and Tangled. We watched them on Netflix through the Wii. They were pretty good movies. The Good Guy was a little slow and not very exciting. It was also very easy to predict what was going to happen. It was a typical chic flick. Like all Disney movies Tangled was really cute! We really enjoyed it, but I still prefer the Disney movies from when I was a kid!
 
Surprisingly, we made it to the end of the Tangled before falling asleep. A few minutes following the credits we both were asleep. That's OK though, the date was over! :)

Ratings:
Don Tequila: 6/10 - just like every other Mexican restaurant
Don Tequila Margaritas: 7.5/10 - weird yellow color rather than green.. assuming they used Tequila gold instead of silver, but strong so good!
The Good Guy: 6/10 - I liked watching it on Netflix, but probably wouldn't watch it again.
Tangled: 8/10 - cute! :)

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Date 3 - Life's Too Short to Drink Bad Wine!

Day: Sunday, 9/4/11
Type: Creative/Romantic
Cost: $
Planned By: Dani

For this week's date night I planned a wine tasting. I decided to have an at-home date night because we did a lot of traveling over the weekend and preferred to stay home. It was pretty easy and a lot of fun to plan this date. I have never been on a wine tasting and thought this would be a great start. Adam has been to a couple wine tastings, one was in a castle in France! I'm sure this did not compare, but at least I was there this time!
While Adam finished getting ready for the wine tasting, I set up the dining room table.  We received many different types of wine glasses from the wedding so I pick out one for each type of wine for each of us. I put some tea light candles on the table to set the mood. We also received a glass serving dish for the wedding and I put plain pita chips and cheese on it. I put out the three bottles of wine along with note cards for each bottles telling us something we need to do after trying that bottle of wine. I also made each of us a comment card so we could discuss the wines at the end.

We decided to get three bottles of wine. We actually aren't big fans of wine. Well, we like it but its not our favorite type of drink. We chose the Meier's brand that is made in Ohio which was recommended to us by Laura Bengel! The three types we got were; Haut Sauternes, Pink Catawba, and Concord.


When everything was ready I asked Adam to put on a pop love song radio from Pandora and come in to the dining room. We started our wine tasting by cleansing our palette's with the plain pita chips and water. The first wine was Haut Sauternes. Adam poured us both a little bit of wine. In order to get the right conclusion to a wine you must swirl, smell, then sip. After smelling we toasted to us! We both made comments and then read what we had to do after trying this wine. The notecard said "Kiss in every room in the apartment!" So we did.

When we got back to the dining room we finished the first glass of wine while talking and eating cheese and pita chips. We cleansed our palette's again to get ready for wine #2; Pink Catawba. We again swirled, smelled, toasted to a long happy life together, then sipped. After writing our comments we read what the note card said to do. It said, "Dance to our song!" Our song is So Close by Jon McLaughlin. We had a nice time dancing together in the living room.
Then third and last bottle of wine was Concord.  We again swirled, smelled, toasted to many more date nights, and sipped. After making comments we read the note card that said, "Finish your favorite bottle of wine!" Therefore we had to discuss each of the wines to determine which bottles we were each going to drink. Here are some of our best comments.

Adam's Comments:
Wine #1 (Haut Sauternes): This wine had a strong ending taste, looked and tasted light, and it tasted good with the cheese. He first rated this wine an 8/10, but over time it became a 6/10. He concluded, "This wine doesn't age well."
Wine #2 (Pink Catawba): "This wine is smelly, but in a good way", and he also thought it was smooth. He rated it an 8/10.
Wine #3 (Concord): "I thought the last wine was smelly but this one was really smelly, but really good!" He concluded it tasted like grape juice with kick! He rated it a 9/10.


Dani's Comments:
Wine #1 (Haut Sauternes): Smells pretty sweet, smooth going down, but has a grainy/bad/dry after taste. I rated this wine a 5/10.
Wine #2 (Pink Catawba): Smells a little bitter, has a very strong first taste, "I could really taste it right when it hit my tongue", it tasted sweet from the moment it hit my tongue until it went down my throat. I rated this wine an 8/10
Wine #3 (Concord): I was expecting this to be my favorite, but it was really sweet, smelled like grapes, was kind of thick, and was sour on my throat. I rated it a 7/10.

Luckily, we had different favorite wines. Adam's favorite wine was the Concord and my favorite was the Pink Catawba. So we had to finish the bottle and then we shared the Haut Sauternes. So we finished our wines and finished the pita chips and cheese while talking and listening to the love songs.


Overall, this date was great! I am very proud of my creativity. Now as you could probably tell this was not the most professional wine tasting, but it was a lot of fun to pretend to be at a wine tasting together. Now everyone should either try their own wine tasting or at least try Meier's Wine!

Ratings: 
Meier's Haut Sauternes: 5.5/10
Meier's Pink Catawba: 8/10
Meier's Concord: 8/10
Meier's Wine: 8/10, although Haut Sauternes was rated much lower the wine overall was great. It was also inexpensive!