Monday, December 22, 2014

Date 139 - Holiday Hop!

Date: Thursday, December 18, 2014
Type: Out on The Town
Cost: $$
Planned By: Adam

Adam and I signed up for the Legacy Village Holiday Bar Hop. We started at Claddaugh Irish Pub where we got our passport of the night, four drink tickets and a nice etched glass. One of the main tasks was to get your passport stamped at all seven bars - you didn't have to purchase anything though.

We both got a beer to start with. I got Sam Adam's Winter Lager and Adam got Great Lakes. Next, we went over to Stir Crazy. We just got our passport stamped at Stir Crazy.

The third bar was the California Pizza Kitchen. We each got a rum in coke and shared one of the free appetizers for the event. I was hoping for pizza samples but the spinach and artichoke dip was good!
Next, we walked over to the Melting Pot to get our stamp. We didn't stay for a drink and they didn't provide appetizers. Then we went over to Bar Louie, which we both have been meaning to go to. They had a nice selection of martinis to choose from so we both got the S'more's martini. It was delicious. They also had a small buffet with different appetizers.
Then we got our passport stamped at Brio. The last bar was Granite City Brewery. We were the first people to arrive so we won!! We've been there plenty of times and we like to try their different beers. First, we both got a cocktail with our last drink tickets. Then we shared one of their new winter beers the Freezer Burn. It was pretty good! We had some appetizers and put our passports in for the drawing then called it a night. They didn't pull the winner the next day.. and we didn't win. :(
We had a great time checking out some new places in Legacy Village and everything was very festive. The price was definitely reasonable and we'll probably participate again next year!

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Date 138 - Buon Natale!

Date: Saturday, December 6, 2014
Type: Out on The Town, Double
Cost: $$
Planned By: Us, Sarah & Bryan

Adam and I have been living in the Cleveland area for almost 4 years and never made it over to Little Italy. Sarah and Bryan were free and invited us to hang out with them. We all decided to check out Little Italy's Winter Wonderland Weekend. 

First, we met up with them at Fuel Coffee Bar. Adam had a cup of coffee before leaving the house so he opted for a shot of espresso (good call). I got the Dipstick Peppermint Mocha Latte and it was delicious! After we got our coffee fix and chatted a little we started the Art Walk. 
The Art Walk included going through all the different stores and galleries. There were some amazing pieces that I wish we could afford. We all made mental notes and some photo evidence of this we might want in the future. There was also a silent auction going on with decorated Christmas trees. The bidding started at $100 and I was really tempted to bid on one of them, but decided against it. A couple of the art galleries offered wine and snacks and we took them up on that!
The festival also had horse drawn carriage rides. We all took one around Little Italy. It was my first carriage ride and it was very excited. The horse was so cute!
For dinner we went to Mama Santa Pizzeria. Adam and I shared a pizza. It was very good and I would definitely go back for another. 
Our final activity of the night was a wine tasting at the Little Italy Wines store. It was $10 for 5 wines, but we got extremely lucky and ended up with 9 tastings. Some of the wines were older than us! We had a great time trying new wines and some wines that we will probably never be able to find again or afford.
Little Italy is such a quaint little area and it was beautifully decorated for Christmas. We had an awesome time and I'm sad it took us this long to discover all it has to offer. We will definitely be back to see the changing galleries and try more of the restaurants.

BONUS:
On Sunday the 7th Adam and I hosted a Crafty Christmas Party. Some of our friends came over and made Christmas crafts, wrapped presents and filled out Christmas cards. 
Everyone brought a delicious dish to share so we all enjoyed yummy food. The only thing that could have made it better was a Browns win. 
I'm definitely in the holiday spirit and I can't wait for all of our family parties coming up!!

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Date 137 - Oh Christmas Tree!

Date: Late November/Early December
Type: At-Home
Cost: $$
Planned By: Both

Adam and I decided decorate our house over the course of about a week and a half. Good plan since we have so many decorations. We currently have two big Christmas trees, two medium size Christmas trees, a small Christmas tree and a ceramic tree. That is 6 trees total. Oh Christmas tree is right!
We have our pretty green, red and purple tree in the living room. It is surrounded by more of our favorite decorations.
We were lucky enough to get our new basement big tree from Debbie and Richard. They decided to get a new one and we adopted their old tree. I chose to make this a green, blue and brown rustic-ish tree. I even made that amazing tree skirt from a Walmart fleece blanket, burlap and hot glue!
In our dining room is our fiber optic tree (given to us by Adam's Aunt Lori a couple years ago).
Our bedroom features a small blue Christmas tree to match our blue walls.
In our upstairs landing area is our medium sized Christmas tree (again, from Aunt Lori). This one has a lot of our childhood ornaments on it. It looks cute in this area.
Our ceramic tree is also in the living room (from my mom!). This one brings back lots of childhood memories along with the Christmas book next to it.
It took a long time to put up all our trees. We enjoyed listening to Christmas music and drinking some mint hot cocoa and Christmas ale while decorating. I'm sure we will continue to build up our Christmas decoration stash, but I think our house is happy with the current amount of holiday cheer.

We also celebrated Thanksgiving in Conneaut with our families. We first had the Neubauer family Thanksgiving on Saturday the 22nd. We had lots of delicious food and good company! I even made a turkey shaped cheese/meat tray. Then we spent Thanksgiving day with my family - watching the parade, doing a one mile turkey trot, getting a little photoshoot and having a yummy dinner.
On Black Friday we went to see Mockingjay Part 1. I am a huge fan of the books - go check out our Hunger Games date night. I was a firm believer that there was no need to make Mockingjay two movies. After seeing the movie I changed my mind. I really enjoyed how they concluded the first half and it was much more action packed than the first half of the book. I think it did a great job setting up for the end of the series!