Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Date 49 - I Want Candy!

Date: Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Type: Fun, Creative, At-Home and Out
Cost: $$
Planned By: Dani

Candy themed date - JACKPOT! I love candy almost as much as I love Adam so of course I had to plan a super fun candy date!

We start off this date by going to B.A. Sweetie's candy warehouse. I have never seen anything like this place. I mean I've been to a candy store but that is an understatement for this establishment. It was seriously a warehouse full of candy. All kinds of candy. Anything you can think of! If I had to spend my entire life in one store I would definitely pick this place! We were supposed to find four things: candy that reminds us of our childhood, our favorite candy, something we didn't think was still made, and something new we've never tried. We ended up just putting everything we wanted in the basket and ignored that list. Some fun things we got were warheads, candy cigarettes (hahaha), cow tails, mallo cups, margarita with salt flavored suckers (gross), sugar daddy sucker, rock candy, junior mints, a grape mustache (disgusting), nerds rope and three pack fun dip!

Next, we went to the Chocolate Bar for their famous martinis. I got the Chocolate Dipped Strawberry and Adam got the Espresso. They were delicious!
Then we went home and played Candy Land (thanks to our neice Madi who let us borrow it) and ate our candy! We had a rule that every time you landed on a pink square with a location or character we got to eat a piece of candy. Adam won two our of three times we played. I am OK with this because everyone knows there is no strategy and its all based on luck of the draw. I already knew he was luckier than me.
I had a blast on this date, and I'm sure Adam did, too. I definitely plan to revisit both B.A. Sweetie and The Chocolate Bar as soon as possible!

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Date 48 - Too Much Meat.

Date: Saturday, July 14, 2012
Type: Nice, Dinner, City, Movie
Cost: $$$
Planned By: Adam

Thanks to Groupon, Adam took me out to a very nice romantic dinner. While Adam was interning in Houston two summers ago the company took him out for a wonderful lunch at a restaurant called Fogo de Chao a Brazilian steakhouse. Adam went on and on and on about this place and I had no idea why until he took me to a similar restaurant later that summer, also in Houston. This type of restaurant soon became Adam's all time favorite place to go. Only problem is it's outrageously expensive. While walking around downtown we saw Brasa. Adam got super excited and has been waiting months to go there. Luckily, Groupon knew this and we gave us a great deal for $30 off at Brasa!
                                                   

These type of Brazilian steakhouses are also known as churrascarias. It is an all you can eat meat restaurant. The servers walk around with different types of meat and carve it for you at your table. Brasa has 16 different types of meat!! Everything was delicious! My favorite was the Filet Mignon with Parmesan cheese. Yum!
             
             
              
Brasa also has a 40 item salad bar included in the price for a full dinner. This salad bar was not just salad! Nope.. there there were different kinds of seafood and mixed salads and other random stuff. It was almost like a full dinner buffet. So I tried my first mussel, and it was really weird, but I'm glad I tried it! Along with the meat and salad they also provide some side dishes; mini rolls, rice, fries, fried bananas (which Adam loves), and salsa. Their service was outstanding.. we were never waiting for more food or water, and there was always someone asking how we were. It was a very nice restaurant. I would recommend it to everyone... except Vegetarians because that would be a big waste of money!
              
By the end of this dinner.. we were completely stuffed and satisfied. We definitely got our money's worth. We went home and watched The Descendants. This movie wasn't as good as we thought it was going to be. I looove George Clooney and Shailene Woodley showed off her acting talent that I was surprised to see she had (I watch The Secret Life of The American Teenager).

Overall, it was one of our best dinner dates! We had an amazing time and we got an extremely good deal! We also got our movie rental for free via a pinterest pin about free Red Box codes! Yay for coupons, groupons and free codes!

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Date 47 - Baby, You're A Firework!

Date: Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Type: Cheap & Easy
Cost: $
Planned By: Dani & Adam

What better Fourth of July date is there than seeing fireworks together? None.
Adam and I love fireworks. Now that we are in the city we see them all the time. Of course 4th of July fireworks are special. First, we watched all the random firework displays out our window that faces the East. We saw at least twenty different shows in the northeastern Ohio area. They were in the distance but it was still really cool. (the picture doesn't do it justice)
We also watched the Macy's 4th of July Fireworks on TV. Fireworks just aren't the same on television. You can't see all the pretty colors as well.

Next, we went to the East 9th Street Pier to watch the downtown Cleveland fireworks show. They were being shot off from the Flats so you could see them over the lake. The East 9th Street Pier is on the other side of the city. We were a little far away, but we could see them just fine. There were a lot of people who had the same idea as us.

Last, we played with sparklers in our outdoor community area a few floors down. It actually took us a few days to get the sparklers and play with them. We both haven't played with sparklers since we were kids, and we remember them lasting a lot longer. It was fun though.. we drew our names and swirled them around.
Super easy date. I really like the holiday themed dates.. they are usually simple but a lot of fun!
check back next week to see why Adam is beyond excited for our upcoming date.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Date 46 - Fondue for Two!

Date: June 30, 2012
Type: Home, Food, Recreate, Easy
Cost: $
Planned By: Dani

June 25, 2010... We got engaged! After Adam proposed with a flower petal trail, forty pictures and an absolutely beautiful ring we went to The Melting Pot for a celebratory dinner. The Melting Pot is a restaurant that serves fondue. We got a three course meal including cheese, chicken & steak, and chocolate. They also gave us an apple sprite.
June 30, 2012... two years later and married! I wanted to recreate the night we got engaged. Well, only the fondue part. I didn't have a ring to give to Adam. I also didn't want to do the chicken or steak because that is too difficult and something we should leave to the professionals. So we just did cheese and chocolate.

We got a fondue pot from our good friends Tim and Liisa for our wedding. We can't figure out where to buy the heating component so we used tea light candles. They worked well enough.

For the cheese we went the easy route and just heated up salsa con queso and had tortilla chips. I know what you're thinking.. that's cheating, but we don't care because we hardly ever get salsa con queso and it was delicious!
For the chocolate we found a simple recipe: 1 cup milk, 1 12oz bag of chocolate chips and 1/4 cup caramel sauce. First, you melt the chocolate chips, then add the milk and caramel sauce. Mix it all up and put it in the double boiler part of the fondue set up. The tea light candles actually worked pretty well for this. We used bananas, marshmallows, apples, and pretzels as dippers. It was a pretty tasty dessert.


We also had Apple Sprites. We both aren't entirely sure how they made our Apple Sprites at The Melting Pot, but we've come up with a recipe of our own. Its really easy.. Apple Pucker and Sprite. Its a good tasting, pretty and slightly alcoholic drink.

Instead of watching old re-runs of shows during our date. We decided to start watching a new television series. Previously, we were big fans of Desperate Housewives which ended this year. :( ABC moved their new drama series Revenge to that slot so we have added it to our TV line up. We got a one week subscription of Hulu Plus to watch the entire first season, and I must say it is a darn good show. I can't wait for the next season!
We had a great time on this date! It is always nice to remember our past, especially a night as wonderful as the one when we got engaged. The fondue was yummy and it was great starting a new TV show together.