Date 28 - The Almighty Dollar!

Date: 2/25/12
Type: Creative, Casual, Funny, Fun
Cost: $
Planned By: Adam

What can you buy with a dollar? Not too much, but you will be surprised what Adam came up with for our dollar themed date night!! Now people you may think you can't afford a nice date, but you all can afford this! OK, the other person may call you a cheap skate, but it is a very creative and really fun date. You don't need to spend tons of money as long as your with the person you love a dollar is enough. I bet my bottom dollar you and your date will remember this night.

We started out at the Dollar Tree. We each got to buy one fun thing for $1 a piece. We saw lots of silly stuff, but Adam quickly found a 350 piece puzzle of New York City that he wanted. It took me a while, but I decided to get a blowing bubbles set. We checked out and moved on to dinner.


We had to pick a restaurant with a dollar menu. Adam chose Taco Bell. Not exactly a dollar menu, but they have a value menu with a bunch of dollar or less items. We got a bunch of tacos, nachos and a drink. Yumm... we love taco bell!

Next, we had some fun at Giant Eagle. First, we both bought a couple of $1 lottery scratch off cards. Then we have a fun competition in the candy aisle. We each got a bag and whoever was the closest to 1/4 of a pound or $1 worth of candy won a kiss. We were both under, but I was almost at exactly 1/4 of a pound. I won!!

We went to the dollar theater in Willoughby Hills next. We decided to see The Muppets. The dollar theater is actually $2.00 for the night movies, but close enough. We didn't get any popcorn or pop because those prices were normal. While waiting for our movie we scratched off our lottery tickets. I won a dollar! The movie was really cute and funny. We are both fans of the muppets, and also the main human actors Jason Segal and Amy Adams. The music and plot made the movie really great, and we recommend it. Also they just won an Oscar for best original song; Man or Muppet, which I think deserved it. The rest of the audience in our theater was pretty obnoxious. Mostly children who couldn't sit still or shut up, but that's OK because it was cheap and the movie was good.

Our last stop was at McDonalds for a $1 fudge sundae dessert. It was delicious!

This date was a lot of fun. We had a great time being frugal together. The entire date cost less than $20! If you don't have $20 then you could always take a couple things out.. and if you have more than $20 you can add some things in!

Ratings:
Dollar Tree: 10/10 - had tons of stuff to choose from and everything is a dollar!
Taco Bell: 9/10 - they could have cheaper drinks.
Lottery Tickets: 5/10 - fun to play but we only won $1
Candy Competition: 10/10 - super fun and we got to keep the candy! :)
Dollar Theater: 6/10 - snacks should be a dollar, too!
The Muppets: 9/10 - really cute, could have had a little more adult humor.
McDonalds Fudge Sundae: 10/10 - ice cream and fudge... how could that go wrong. :)

Date 18 - A Toast to the New Year!

Day: Saturday, 12/17/11
Type: Typical
Cost: $$
Planned By: Adam


We decided not to do a Christmas Themed date night last week.. instead we did a "new" themed date. It was a typical date, lunch and a movie.

We tried something new for lunch; Red Robin. We'd never been there before and they're commercials are so catchy... you know "Reeeed Robin.. Yum!" It didn't seem much different than somewhere like Applebees, but it was a nice little restaurant. They are known for their burgers so we both got a burger. I got the Sauteed Shroom Burger wrapped in lettuce (instead of a bun) with fries. It was very difficult to eat this without the bun. It came in a basket instead of a plate so I couldn't cut it very well and it was too slippery to hold. It was OK though I finished it, I was just glad it wasn't a first date because that would have been embarrassing. Adam got the Red Robin Bacon Cheeseburger with fries. He never tries anything new, but he did ask for more fries since they were bottomless.. it was very exciting!!

We had some time before the movie so we went shopping for some New Year's Eve supplies. We went to Party City and got decorations, accessories and tableware. We're going to have a great black and white party. :)

Movie Time!! We went to see.. New Year's Eve! We enjoyed Valentine's Day a couple years ago and thought we would like this one too. We got there about 10 minutes early.. good thing, too. Adam had to use the rest room and I had to sneak over to the concession stand and buy a medium popcorn and pop! I love popcorn. :) I really dislike previews, and this time was no different. There was a preview for "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" which I hadn't seen or heard about, and it but me in a very depressed mood for the rest of the previews. Luckily, the movie started out with a bang, and I remembered why I was at the theater. It was a pretty good movie, I won't give anything away though. It was comical and sad, but I really enjoyed it as a whole. Adam and I agreed it was one of those movies you watch once and don't really feel the need to watch again, but still it was worth watching.

After the movie we bought a few more things for the party and went home. It was nice to just have lunch and a movie for our date this week. We hadn't done that in awhile and it was a lot of fun.

Ratings:
Red Robin: 7/10 - good food, unlimited fries, nice atmosphere, not really unique
Shopping: 7/10 - normal, a little pricey.
New Year's Eve: 8/10 - Great actors, good plot, don't need to see again.

Date 14 - Bloody Hell!

Day: Saturday, 11/20/11
Type: Fun/Creative/Casual
Cost: $$
Planned By: Adam

For this week's date night Adam had a brilliant idea. He also got very excited for this date night unlike any other date he has planned. The final Harry Potter movie came out on DVD last Friday so Adam decided to have a Harry Potter themed date night. I was super excited about this since I love Harry Potter and Adam never lets me watch the movies.

We decided to go all out for this date. We found some great ideas for Harry Potter themed snacks. We pretty much robbed Honeydukes for this date night. It took us a long time to prepare and find all of the snacks but it we had fun.

We made 9 different Harry Potter type snacks; acid pops, cauldron cakes, licorice wands, cockroach clusters, peppermint toads, chocolate frogs, Bertie Bott's every flavor beans, chocolate galleons, and extra chocolate (in case dementors show up). And what would Harry Potter night be without Butterbeer!

 

If you ever want to have a Harry Potter party here is how we made them:
Acid Pops - Blow Pops + Nerds
Licorice Wands - Black or Red Licorice dipped in chocolate (for the handle)
Peppermint Toads - White Chocolate Melts + Peppermint Flavor
Chocolate Frogs - Milk Chocolate Melts
Cauldron Cakes - Chocolate Lava Cakes with a Twizzler for the handle
Cockroach Clusters - Chocolate Covered Pretzels
Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans - Jelly Belly jelly beans
Chocolate Galleons - gold chocolate coins
Butterbeer - 7 cups cream soda to 1 cup butterscotch schnapps
 
The hardest things to make were the peppermint toads and chocolate frogs because we had to use a chocolate mold to make them. We went to at least 5 different stores to find this frog mold, but it was worth it. It would have been so much easier if we could have robbed Honeydukes of all its treats instead.

So after everything was made we set up the living room. We decided to watch both parts of Harry Potter 7 back to back. It was very exciting since we hadn't seen the last movie since it came out in theaters. Here is the finished product.

 

The food was delicious. The butterbeer was very sweet, but still pretty tasty! The movies were great, and I almost cried again even though I've seen the movie and read the book. The story of Harry Potter is so touching and amazing... I can't remember a life without Harry Potter. Haha OK not true, but you get my point! :)

Ratings:
everything was bloody brilliant!