Date 25 - What a Super Bowl!

Date: Sunday, 2/6/2012
Type: Sports, Competitive
Cost: $ 
Planned By: Dani

If you live under a rock then I'm here to tell you last Sunday was the Super Bowl. I decided to plan a super Super Bowl date. Because it was a Sunday we didn't want to go downtown or have a party since we had to work the next day so we had our own little super bowl party. I chose a pretty standard football meal and found some fun football games to play. Just so everyone knows we are Browns fans, so we didn't care too much about who won.

We had our very own kiss cam, too.

I printed up a sheet for each of us to fill in during the night. The sheet consisted of the guessing game questions about the game, a spot to write down our top 5 favorite commercials, and a place to write who won the two pre-game games we were going to play.Whoever finished the night with the most points wins breakfast in bed made by the other person.

We started by playing peg football. This is a silly game I found for $1 at Target. You roll the dice and the game board says what the amount means. For example, if I rolled a three that means Adam's team intercepted it, seven was a 20 yard run, and twelve or two was a touchdown! There was a rule for every combination. We played until someone made 10 touchdowns, and yours truly won! 1 point for me!

Next, we played paper football. We are sure if we played this totally right, but it was fun regardless. We made a paper football and used our coffee table as the field. You slide the football across the table and if it lands with a piece of the football hanging off the table its considered a touch down. If you get a touchdown you can try for an extra point by flicking it over the other person's "field goal", as in their hands shaped like a field goal. The game started out slow because we couldn't' get the hang of it. After awhile we started scoring touchdowns. Adam got the one and only successful extra point of the night, but I won! Another point for me! 2-0!!

After our pre-game games were over we had to start making all the food. Our menu contained baked boneless chicken wings, Chili's chili con queso dip, pepperoni crescent rolls, football oreo-like cookies, and drunk gummy bears. To make this part of the date we made everything together. Everything was really easy to make and we had a great time cooking together. We finished preparing the food at 5:55pm just in time for the pre-game show. We put all the food on the coffee table, filled in our guesses about the game and settled on the couch for the rest of the night to eat and watch.

I bet you are all wondering who won breakfast in bed. I'm sure the anxiety is killing you. Well, I was really hoping to win this prize. Adam was also hoping to win this prize after he read the top of the paper half way through the game. OK fine I will tell you. We tied 8 to 8. Somehow we actually tied. Isn't that horrible. Ugh. I guess we'll just have to make breakfast together and eat it in bed together sometime. Annoying. I should have planned a tie breaker, but I didn't. So it is what it is. The other part of our sheet was about commercials. We were supposed to write down our 5 favorites, but the commercials weren't very good this year. We agreed that the Bud Light We Go dog was the best commercial of the night.

I wasn't sure how much fun I would have on this date night. I'm not really a big football fan (I prefer baseball)... especially when my team isn't playing. Not that I normally stay tuned to a full Browns game, but because I was competing for breakfast in bed I made sure to pay attention, and ultimately had a lot of fun on this date! We had a great time, and now you all know how to have a wonderful super bowl date! :)

By the way... the Giants won.

Date 24: Work Hard, Play Hard.

Date: Saturday, 1/28/12
Type: Formal Gathering
Cost: $
Planned By: Adam
Adam invited me to go to his work's annual IT Event this past weekend. It is a semi-formal gathering held at the beginning of each year. The event consisted of a gourmet buffet, casino games, dancing, and a big raffle at the end.

The event didn't start until 7PM so when we got there we went straight to the buffet line for dinner. We had roast beef, mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables. They also had a Chinese buffet so I made sure to get a fortune cookie! Even though the company booked the entire floor of a hotel for this event we had a very difficult time finding somewhere to sit to eat.

 

After we ate we got our $100 casino chip and looked around for a good casino game to play. We chose The Wheel! You pick a number 1-9 and if the wheel lands on your number you win. The lady in charge of the wheel was hilarious. Because it wasn't real money being gambled she liked giving away some chips, and rigging the wheel to help us all win. Even without her help I was doing pretty well! For every $50 in casino chips we had at the end of the night we could put one ticket in the raffle. Adam and I ended up with over $6,000 combined so we got a lot of tickets. The bad thing though was that we had to write our name and phone number on all of them. It took us awhile, but we finished it in time.

After we got all our tickets in we went to the dessert buffet and got some delicious brownies. We went to the ballroom to wait for the raffle drawing. We danced a little while we waited, but we didn't want to embarrass ourselves in front of Adam's coworkers so we kept it to a minimum. First, they did the raffle for a ton of gift cards. We didn't win any. Then they put up a list of people who one the big prizes (TVs, Xbox, Vegas Vacation, etc). We didn't win any of those either. :( We were a little bummed out, but we had a lot of fun so we didn't let it get to us. We decided to run for the coat check and head on out after the raffles were done to beat the other 500 people to the parking garage.

Overall, it was a very nice night out. We got to dress up and go downtown together, I got to meet some people that Adam works with and It was great socializing with people and not having to spend very much money.

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. :)

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!

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!

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