Sunday, February 24, 2013

Date 77 - You're My Hero!

Date: Saturday, February 23, 2013
Type: At Home, Theme
Cost: $
Planned By: Dani

I wanted to plan a more manly date for Adam. He has been wanted to see the Avengers for some time so I thought an Avengers theme date would be perfect. We needed a pretty cheap date this week because the previous two and the next two dates will be a bit more expensive.

We rented the Avengers on blu-ray from Red Box. I love $1 movies.
I wanted to think of some good food that represented some of the avengers to snack on during the movie. I only did three to keep it a bit cheaper.

1. Captain America Parfaits - red jello, blue jello and whip cream! Red, white and blue goodness!

2. Thor Hammers - cheese cubes and pretzels. They look like cute little hammers. Too bad they have no special power.

3. Hawkeye Wings - chicken wings. We know hawkeye doesn't fly, but Adam wanted chicken wings so it kind of fit.

This is all we had, but we had a great time watching the movie and eating our snacks. It was really cheap and easy to prepare. Obviously, this wasn't all out like our Harry Potter Themed date, but it was still a lot of fun, manly, and yummy!


Here are some other ideas if you want to do this date for your man.
Captain America: Captain Crunch, Shield decorated cookies, anything red white and blue
Thor: lightning cookies, electric lemonade
Hawkeye: bugles to represent arrow tips
Black Widow: make spider cookies
Iron Man: pump some iron together and get the adrenalin going, make iron-manwiches
Hulk: have lots of green vegetables or make a green drink
Have fun!

Date 76 - There Is Music In Everything.

Date: Saturday, February 16, 2013
Type: Out On The Town
Cost: $
Planned By: My Mom

As I said in the last post, my mom got each of us tickets for Christmas. Adam and I received tickets to see Stomp! I've never seen them live, but I always thought the way they made music was fascinating so I was excited to get these tickets. My mom also gave us $50 for dinner for the night of our tickets.

Because it was Valentine's weekend and my Birthday weekend we chose try somewhere new downtown. We decided on John Q's Steakhouse in Public Square. As soon as we got there it started snowing like crazy. We enjoyed our meals. I got a steak salad and Adam got the open faced steak sandwich. Both dishes were delicious! 
We got lucky and it stopped snowing for our walk back to the apartment. Unluckily, it started snowing again and the show was in Akron. So we braved the storm and left early. We got to E.J. Thomas Hall in the University of Akron just in time because we got on of the last parking spots! It was also a great parking spot right by the exit. We got a little lost finding the way to our seats because the hall was pretty big and the usher at the main door confused me. Our seats were a bit far back but we still had a great view of the stage!
The show was amazing. I sincerely loved the entire performance! The music they made was fabulous, they were all great dancers, and it was very funny. I didn't know Stomp performances were supposed to be funny, but I was a laughing a lot. It was a very well rounded performance, and I loved some of their props. My favorite parts included them swinging on the fence using old signs as their drums, the basketball number, and when they each had a huge inner tube to use. There really is music in everything and these performers were extremely talented! 

We really enjoyed this show, and I would more than likely go again. Although I'm just not sure what else they will do, but their creative so I'm sure they will come up with something.

The drive home was horrible. The weather turned to a bit of a blizzard with white outs and slippery snow covered highways. Luckily, it was late and there weren't many other cars on the road, but I was really panicky. There was a bunch of time added to our drive, but we made it home safely! :)

Date 75 - Laughter Is The Way To True Love!

Date: Saturday, February 9, 2013
Type: Double, Travel
Cost: $$$
Planned By: My Mom, Michelle

For Christmas my mom decided to buy each of us girls tickets to an event. For Michelle she bought tickets to see the touring Second City show. Adam and I saw Second City while we were in Chicago in high school so we decided to take a trip down to Columbus to see the show with them. For those of you who do not know what Second City is... It's a improvisational comedy enterprise based in Chicago and has been the starting point for many comedians, actors, writers and directors.

BUT FIRST... there was a huge surprise waiting for me at Michelle's. I got my big birthday present soon after I got there. Michelle, Amanda, my mom & Rob, grandma, Debbie & Richard, Zak, Jim, and Adam pitched in to buy me a Nikon D3000 DSLR camera package. It came with the body, 18-55mm and 55-200mm lenses, two DVDs, an 8 GB memory card and a carrying bag. I have been wanting this for some time, and I am so grateful that everyone was able to get it for me! Because of my wonderful family I can start my photography hobby! Any one want there picture taken?


So for lunch we went to 101 Beer Kitchen. It is a rustic type restaurant with some great food and beer options. The portion sizes are huge and delicious! It was really nice trying out a new place in Columbus.
                                                    
For dinner we went to one of my favorite places in Columbus.. mostly because it is super close to their apartment and they have awesome margaritas. We went to El Vaquero! As many of you know we love Mexican food so it was a great place for dinner for our double date! We got tacos and burritos and yummy margaritas!

Next, we went to the show. It was a touring troupe and they were performing at the Lincoln Theater. Even though we bought the tickets at different times we sat pretty close to each other. We were in the orchestra section and only about 10 rows back from the stage. It was a great view! The performers were very funny. They had many pre rehearsed skits and songs, but they also did a bunch of improv skits with help from the audience. They were every some parts with audience participation which was a lot of fun! I always love when comedians break character and laugh at themselves, and this happened a few times, which makes me laugh even harder! We had a great time, and if you are looking for a great comedy show I would recommend Second City! They're touring group was hilarious, but I would definitely push anyone visiting Chicago to see them there!
We had a great weekend spending time with Michelle and Jim! It is really nice that they aren't too far away for a quick weekend getaway. 

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Date 74 - Super Duper!

Date: Sunday, February 3, 2013
Type: At-Home, theme
Cost: $
Planned By: Dani

Super Bowl Sunday!!! Just a warning last year's our Super Bowl date from last year was way better. I have been very lazy about dates and pretty much everything this winter.. call it the winter blues.

First, we watched the Puppy Bowl.. because why wouldn't you? Its adorable. Obi really enjoyed the kitten half time show. I was super happy that Marta won MVP!!

We had a few fun food ideas for our little two person super bowl party. The first was super thin crust mini deep dish pizza. First, you cut about 4 circles out of a each tortilla shell. Place the circles in a muffin pan. Put a mixture of tomato sauce and cheese inside each circle and top with pepperoni. Then bake at 425 for about 13 minutes! It was super easy, and messy.. especially when I dropped one of the finished products on the floor. Oops.

Next, we had Super Pretzels! They are just the frozen soft pretzels you can find at any store. We also melted some cheese to go with them. Yum.. I love soft pretzels.

Last, we had Super Kid Ice Cream. You know what I'm talking about.. some places call it Superman.. others Super Kids.. maybe just Super Duper Awesome Tasting Ice Cream. Its the kind with the pretty colors swirled together. The three flavors were lemon, raspberry and vanilla. It was delicious! :)

While stuffing our faces with all this wonderful food we watched the Super Bowl. We were rooting for the 49ers. Here is my reasoning: my two favorite numbers are 4 and 9.. oh and we hate the Ravens for obvious reasons. Maybe next year the Browns will be in the Super Bowl!!! The only extra performance of the night I liked was Jennifer Hudson and Sandy Hook Elementary choir singing America the Beautiful. Alicia Keys took too long with the Star Spangled Banner, and Beyonce mostly danced.. although I did like seeing Destiny's Child back together I wish they would have sang another one of their hits rather than Beyonce's. The commercials were OK, but I didn't find myself laughing at many of them.. my favorite was the Clydesdale for sure.

Overall, cute easy laid back date. :)

Friday, February 8, 2013

Date 73 - Smooth Ice is Paradise.

Date: Saturday, January 19, 2013
Type: Out on the town, family
Cost: $
Planned By: Adam's Mom, Debbie!

There are a lot of Disney attractions for children. One I had never been to was Disney on Ice. When Adam's mom asked us if we wanted to go with my sister-in-law and her kids of course I said yes. I love Disney and I love watching ice skating on TV. Two great things put in to one.. and we had a short commute!

We met Debbie, Hayley, Madi and Jensen at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland for the show. They got there pretty early, but we dilly-dallied and just got there with enough time to look around at all the cool things to buy. I really wanted a princess cup with a sno cone inside, but Adam didn't think it was worth $10.
The show was great! The four main guests other than Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Donald were Ariel, Rapunzel, Merida and Belle. See, this is why we had to make sure to watch Brave a couple weeks before or we would have been so confused. And don't worry we watched Tangled during one of our first few dates. There were a few extra guests like Pinnochio and Cinderella's step sisters. My favorite was Ariel. It was a very extravagant part of the show and all the costumes and choreography was amazing. I also like those songs the best. All of the performances were great, and I would definitely go back to another Disney On Ice. I think we may have had more fun than some of the kids in the arena... especially since the ones behind us were talking about how they fell asleep during parts of the show.
Madi had to use her binoculars.
After the show we all went back to our apartment. We ate Subway and the kids had a great time playing with their cousin, Obi. :)

We had tons of fun. I loved the entire show! I totally recommend going to see one of these whether or not you have a little kid to take with you!

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Date 72 - Life is Like a Box of Chocolates.

Date: Saturday, January 12, 2013
Type: At home, Cheap, Theme
Cost: $
Planned By: Both

So Adam and I were extremely lazy, and put together this date that we did throughout the day. We didn't feel like spending much money and we liked the idea of laying around the house. There were three parts to this date, and all three parts include chocolate!!

1. Chocolate Chip Muffins
We have an excessive amount of chocolate chips left over from baking cookies. Apparently, I don't know how to add and we ended up with a whole extra bag. For breakfast I made us chocolate chip muffins. I'd never made them from scratch before but they turned out really good! The problem with baking is that you always end up with so much more than you need. So we'll be eating those for days.
2. Chocolate Fondue
My mother-in-law, Debbie, got me a Velata fondue set for Christmas. We decided to try it out. We made the dark chocolate fondue and dipped pretzels, teddy grahams and animal crackers in it. It was really good and super easy to use! Too bad we were too lazy to get other dippers for it, but I'm sure we will someday.
3. Chocolate Martini Slushies
Thanks to my sister-in-law, Hayley, we had one more chocolate thing to make. For Christmas she got us slushie mixes from Nectar of the Vine (Everyone should go buy one of these mixes because they are so good. My favorite is the Pomegranate and we used Chardonnay to make it). These things are incredible. They are normally wine slushies but for the Chocolate mix we decided to use vodka. If we ever make one of these with vodka again we will definitely follow the directions because we insisted on making the water to vodka ratio 1:1.. and it was way too strong! Still tasted great though.
Obi wanted some too.
So there you have it. Super easy and cheap date. Sometimes when you're lazy you just have to work with what you already have!