Date 164 - The Tassel Was Worth The Hassle!

Date: Friday, April 29, 2016
Type: Special Occasion/Travel
Cost: $ multiplied by a lot
Planned By: Adam & OU

Adam started his Master's of Business Administration degree back in May 2014. He decided to attend Ohio University and use their online program. Because of the flexibility of the online program he was able to continuing working full time.

Adam graduated with his MBA on April 29th at the graduate commencement ceremony at the Convocation Center in Athens, Ohio. I am so proud of his accomplishment. It was not an easy two years but the end product was worth it. He worked extremely hard throughout the two years and graduated with a 4.0 GPA.

Adam, Debbie and I arrived in Athens on the 28th. We stayed at the OU Inn which is a nice walk to uptown Athens. We had dinner at Broney's - complete with champagne slushies. We then went over to Pigskin for a Black Widow. Then shuffled over to Lucky's and Cat's Eye to see some of the NFL draft. We ended our night at Jackie O's for some of their awesome beer. It was a fun night in Athens minus being too old to be carded. Ugh.

Commencement started at 9:30AM. We watched Adam walk in and take his seat. We also watched every doctorate candidate get their hood - which was the bulk of the ceremony. Then they quickly went through all the master's students. Alma Mater Ohio tied it all together at the end and that was it - he graduated!! (Video by Debbie)

We walked uptown for some photos on college green and some shopping. We then walked back towards the hotel, getting some photos around the convo then back to the hotel. We then had to say good-bye to OU. Its always a little sad, but we know we'll be back soon!

Haven't changed a bit.

Michelle, Manda, Zak and Jim came to our house on May 7th to celebrate a little. Michelle made delicious and adorable graduation cap cupcakes. They also gave Adam a framed Alma Mater Ohio photo. It will look great with all our diplomas - when we finally hang those up. We had a fun night together - especially dinner at Don Ramon!

Again, I am so very very proud of Adam! Congratulations!! You did it! <3

P.S. Maybe we'll have more time for dates and updating this silly blog in the near future now.

Date 163 - Cool Beans!

Date: Friday, March 25, 2016
Type: Theme, Double
Cost: $
Planned By: Dani

Who doesn't love jelly beans? Well, my husband but that didn't stop me from creating a date night based on one of my favorite types of candy!

Sarah and Bryan invited us over for game night. I let them know I was planning this Jelly Bean date for sometime this weekend and if they wanted to participate and make it a double date that we would be happy to include them. Sarah accepted!

1. Sparkling Jelly Bean Martini
Prep for this cocktail started on Wednesday. For this recipe I needed Jelly Bean infused vodka. So I purchased a bottle of Pinnacle vodka and a bag of Starburst Jelly Beans. I sorted the different colors and picked the four with the most. I put about 1/2 cup of each color of jelly bean (Strawberry, Green Apple, Cherry and Grape) in to a mason jar. Then I topped the jelly beans with a little less than a cup of vodka. I left them alone to infuse for the next 48 hours - swirling them around everyone once in awhile.

Adam and I made Jelly Bean stir stick garnishes to make the cocktails cuter.
The Martini is made with 2 oz of your favorite jelly bean infused vodka, topped with champagne or lemon lime soda.

2. Jelly or Smelly

The title of this game is strange, I know, but I couldn't think of anything better. Anyway.. this was a team taste testing challenge. Each team got a pack of Jelly Belly jelly beans. Each partner had ten jelly beans to try and guess the flavor. I did not do a good job and it was much harder than it seemed like it would be. Adam and I won though!

Team Toasted Marshmallow

Team Juicy Pear

3. Beans & Booze
I made up this game mostly based off the card game Kings. Each color/flavor of a jelly bean had a drinking rule. We used the Life Saver jelly beans that Sarah & Bryan provided. The peach jelly bean was for pet name. We each had to pick a common pet name to call each other. I was Fluffy, Adam was Lucky, Bryan was Spot and Sarah was Mocha (also the name of one of their cats). It was a fun game and got us drinking those jelly bean martinis pretty quickly.

Then we got a group photo and ate lots and lots of jelly beans and lived happily ever after!

Having some issues figuring out how to use my Nikon camera app. Practice makes perfect.

If you like this date go check out our Peep Date!

Date 162 - Luck O' The Irish!

Date: Saturday, March 12, 2016
Type: Family, Theme
Cost: $
Planned By: Miche & Mandy

As most of you are well aware at this point my family has three birthday celebrations a year: Michelle & Zak in December/January... Amanda & Adam in July/August... and Me & Jim in February/March.

Michelle and Manda planned mine and Jim's birthday party around St. Patrick's Day. We all met up at Michelle & Jim's in Columbus.

First, we had homemade Reubens courtesy of our chef, Michelle. They were delicious. We also complemented them nicely with some green beer.

Next, we enjoyed Michelle's homemade birthday dessert - Irish Car Bomb Trifle. The trifle consisted of Guinness chocolate cake, Jameson caramel, and Bailey's cream frosting. It was amazing!

Present time!! Jim got some games and a Fargo poster. I got an iPhone camera lens, an bag insert for camera gear, bluetooth headphones, a stamp, Miche-knitted photo frames, and a new memory card! Then we surprised Manda with a Fitbit!!

Amanda came prepared with a great new game. It was supposed to be an Irish scavenger hunt but she made it in to an Easter Egg Hunt Drinking Game. There were five of us playing (because sadly Jim wasn't feeling well). One person hid the eggs. Each egg had a command within. If you found an egg you'd run back to the person who hid them and do what the egg said. They were mostly about drinking but some including doing a somersault, doing the Thriller dance, spinning, etc. The hardest ones were finishing your drink, do an Irish Car Bomb, take a shot, etc. We played twice and its was so much fun! Brought back childhood memories of randomly playing Easter Egg hunt throughout the year but this time with an added twist of drinking!

After playing the games we decided not to go out to the Irish pub for dinner since Jim still wasn't feeling well so we ordered pizza and continued drinking beer. We then did normal things the rest of the night - running around Michelle's house for Fitbit steps, Manda doing some Scottish dancing, Michelle playing the ukulele, lots of singing, trying to play hot potato but failing, selfies.. you know normal stuff. 

We had a great time in Columbus celebrating mine and Jim's birthday even though Jim was out for the count a lot of the time. At least he got to be there since it was in his house!

Now we can all look forward to Amanda and Adam's birthday celebration in the summer!

Date 161 - Be Your Own Hero.

Date: Saturday, January 9, 2016

Type: At Home, Disney

Cost: $

Planned By: Dani

Adam and I really enjoy Disney movies even though we're getting older. This weekend we chose to finally watch Big Hero 6. We didn't know much about it and I didn't want to look up many spoilers so it is a pretty simple date night. 

First, snacks. I knew that the main guy - Baymax - was white and had red armor at some point so we went with red and white snacks. White - white cheddar popcorn. Red - Twizzlers. After watching the movie you could have some other snacks including; healthy treats, donuts, hot wings, gummy bears, etc. 

Second, drinks. We made a red drink with cherry vodka, grenadine and sprite (aka a Dirty Shirley). To top it off we made Baymax Marshmallows. They were adorable.

We had the movie DVRed from one of those free HBO weekends so we easily brought up the movie on our TV to watch. It was an adorable movie and if you haven't seen it yet you should. It has a nice overlying message and a lot of fun and action to enjoy along the way. I really enjoyed the low battery Baymax scenes and that the movie revolved around science and being a nerd! I would definitely watch it again and I full expect a equal to be in the works.