Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Date 23: You Make My Heart Melt!

Date: 1/21/12
Type: Themed, Creative, Fun
Cost: $
Planned By: Dani
I used the saying "You Make My Heart Melt" to think of a cute date for us this week. I tried to think of a few things that had to do with the word melt, and put them all together to plan a date.

Part 1: I decided we should go to Melt Bar and Grilled for dinner. We had heard really good things about this place. We'd never been there before so we thought we should try it, and what could be a perfect time other than a melt themed date night. We got there around 4PM thinking it would probably be busy any later. We were wrong, it was busy at 4 and we had to wait 45 minutes to eat. It was a little irritating but we waited. They had lots of interesting things hanging on the walls so we played I Spy for a little while. The place was really small so when we finally sat down we were practically sitting right next to two other people. It's OK we didn't mind because we like eaves dropping to keep dinner interesting. Anyway I got the Hot Italian Melt and Adam got the Chorizo & Potato Melt, and they both came with home cut fries. The sandwiches were huge. They were pretty good, but I was expecting something amazing. The fries were delicious. We both decided it wasn't really worth the wait or calories/cholesterol, but it was still a pretty good dinner.
Part 2: What is a type of dessert that already seems melted? A Milkshake! So we used our margarita maker as a blender and made two different types of milkshakes, Mint Oreo and KitKat/Reese. Here's how we made them:
Mint Oreo Milkshake:
Put 4 Scoops of Vanilla Ice Cream, 1.5 cups of milk, 1/2 cup creme de menth in blender and blend a little. Then add oreos and blend to preferred consistency. Garnish the top with extra oreo crumbs.
KitKat & Reese Milkshake:
Put 3 Scoops of Vanilla Ice Cream, 1.5 cups of milk in blender and blend a little. Then add Kit Kats and Reeses and blend to preferred consistency. Garnish the top with leftover candy.
They were pretty yummy, and it was fun making them together.

Part 3: I had to find a fun activity for us that involved something that melts. Because its winter and snow melts I thought a fun winter activity would be good. Building a snow man was the first thing that came to mind. We live in an apartment building so we don't have a yard to build a snow man in, but we do have a balcony that had some snow on it. We made two little snow people, one to represent each of us. We used some bamboo skewers for the arms, a piece of orange straw for the noses, and left over oreos for everything else. We made sure our snow people were holding hands so they had company and went back inside. The next morning they melted :(
Ratings:
Melt Bar & Grilled: 6/10 - long wait, a little expensive, food not as good as we were expecting
Milkshakes: 8/10 - a little too much creme de menth in the mint oreo, reese & kit kats are a little funny together, but they were both still very good!
Snowman Building: 10/10 - building things together is always fun. :)

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Date 22: Espresso Yourself!

Day: Saturday, January 14, 2012
Type: Creative & Casual
Cost: $
Planned By: Adam & Dani

So Adam and I have been together for 5 years, since before we were 18. Therefore, we haven't really gone on too many typical dates like you see on TV or in the movies. One date that you always see is just going out for coffee. Adam and I have never done this, so I came up with a twist on this typical date idea; a Coffee Crawl! Its like a shuffle or a pub crawl, but with coffee!! Adam really likes coffee and I like cappuccinos or a mocha.

Saturday morning we woke up and got ready for the day. Our first coffee shop stop was Cafe Europa in the plaza across the street from our apartment complex. Adam got the Mudslide Coffee and I got the Europa Mocha. We shared a Chocolate Chip Muffin for breakfast. My mocha wasn't very chocolatey; it tasted more like milk, coffee and only a little bit of chocolate. Adam said his coffee tasted like coffee, with maybe a tiny hint of chocolate. They were pretty good, and the atmosphere was OK, but it was more like a restaurant than a coffee shop.

The next stop was the Arabica Coffeehouse in downtown Willoughby. This was a very nice coffee shop.  It had a great atmosphere and really felt like a nice place to spend your Saturday morning. The shop was filled, but there was a table open for us to sit at. We shared one of their special mochas; The Midnight Mocha. It was made with german chocolate cake syrup. It was delicious! It was really sweet and didn't have much coffee taste, but I didn't mind!

Our last stop was Karma Koffee still in downtown Willoughby. This place was really strange. It was dark inside, no one was there and the girl working was not very friendly. We got our own drinks and as soon as we tasted them regretted our choice. I got the Chocochino and Adam just got a regular coffee. The chocochino was gross. It had zero taste of chocolate and Adam's coffee was also bad. They did have board games though so we played battle ship. The girl at the counter was talking very loudly on her phone the whole time, and there was some really crazy inappropriate song playing. Good thing we're easy to please because it was actually kind of humorous. Adam beat me at battle ship, and we left.
Now, if I were to ever take someone on a coffee date in Willoughby I would definitely recommend Arabica and definetly not recommend Karma Koffee. I really liked that Midnight Mocha, but I truly love McDonald's Peppermint Mocha. We chose not to go to a big business though, and really help out and experience the Willoughby small businesses. We had a lot of fun and it was quite an experience going on our first coffee date together.

Ratings:
Cafe Europa-Bistro: 7/10 - good drinks, good muffin, OK atmosphere
Arabica Coffee House: 10/10 - delicious and great atmosphere
Karma Koffee: 3/10 - the drinks were terrible, but they had board games!

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Date 21 - I Don't Wanna Grow Up

Date: Friday 1/6/12
Type: Simple, Creative, At-Home
Cost: $
Planned By: Dani

Adam and I found our inner child this week during our date. It was a very simple fun date. We pretended we were children again.

We started by making Kool-Aid Popsicles. You take your favorite flavor of Kool-Aid, we used grape, and put it in an ice cube tray. Put a popsicle stick or a bamboo skewer in and let them freeze. Super easy and super tasty. My mom used to makes these for us when we were little.

Next, we built a blanket fort in our living room. We got all our sheets, pillows and blankies and started building. We wanted to be able to watch our movie from under it so we left one side open. Our fort stretched from the love seat to the recliner, so practically the entire living room. I did most of the building of the fort while Adam made the the inside of the fort cozy with pillows, blankies and our stuffed animals.

 

We settled in to the fort, at our popsicles, and watched our favorite childhood movie; The Lion King, but this time in 3D!! The Lion King is such a cute movie. It's always fun to watch a children's movie when your an adult, you realize so many more jokes that are directed at the parents. Our favorite part is singing along with all of the songs, and of course we still know most of them.


This date was fun, creative and it was great acting like a kid again!

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Date 20 - Who Doesn't Love a Snow Day?

Day: Sunday, 1/1/12
Type: Athletic & Casual
Cost: $$
Planned By: Dani
Sunday was our 5 year anniversary of when we became an official couple. We celebrated by going on a double date with our friends, Cooper and Lorena. They are in town for the holidays from Texas. Lorena had never seen snow before this year or been to Cleveland so we went to Cleveland Indians Snow Days at Progressive Field. Sadly, it didn't snow.. it rained.
Thanks to Progressive we got cheap discounted tickets. We got to the field around 2PM, the weather was pretty crappy and there weren't many people there. We decided to ride the Batterhorn first, a 200 foot snow tubing hill. It was pretty much all ice so we went really fast. It was a lot of fun so we went on it again, and again later.
Next, we ice skated on the frozen mile.It was about 50 degrees out so the frozen mile was melting which made it more difficult to skate on, but don't worry Adam and I took an ice skating class at OU last year so we are pretty much pros. It was Cooper and Lorena's first time, though. 5 laps around the field was a mile and we did 6!
At one point it got so windy that the lit up wooden characters around the field blew down and flew away. When they landed they sparked. Luckily, the wind was blowing away from the visitors and no one got hit.
When our ankles started hurting we quit skating and went in the locker room. We sat and talked and then tried out the Pitch Speed game. It was free so we all played a couple times. It was tracking the speed of our throws. Here are our high speeds:
Cooper: 73 mph
Adam: 46 mph
Dani: 45 mph
Lorena: 37 mph
Not too bad. Adam may have beaten me, but you should have seen some of his throws. Hilarious! He missed the back drop at least twice. He needs to work on his aim.

Dinner was next on our list. We were supposed to go to The Chocolate Bar, but it was closed for New Year's Day. I thought I had double checked that, but apparently not. So we went to Tower City, walked around and ate at Houlihans. At first, it seemed like a sport's bar/grille, but it was actually pretty nice inside. Because I really wanted a hot cocoa after playing in the snow, I got a Chocolate Martini (yeah, they're practically the same thing). It tasted like coffee. Adam got the French Dip and I got a Southwest Grilled Chicken Wrap. Cooper got the Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo and Lorena got the Grilled Rosemary Chicken. Everything looked and tasted really good. I especially liked the fries. I could go for some of those fries right now.

After dinner we walked back to the car, drove back to Willoughby and said good-bye. It was a really fun day, we all had a great time!

Ratings:
Batterhorn: 10/10 - no line, lots of fun, really fast
Frozen Mile: 8/10 - too wet, some areas were dirty which made skating difficult
Pitch Speed Game: 10/10 - free, fun and funny!
Houlihans: 7/10 - good food, but my martini didn't taste like chocolate