Week 6: Hunter Hayes

Sometimes it's fun to just splurge on a date, and that is just what we did this week!! I give this date $$$$ because after tickets, dinner, and paying our babysitter it was just over $100 (I know I cringe when I think about it too!). We did purchase the tickets a while ago though, so it wasn't really so much at once.

We started off by going to Sonic for dinner. Something fast to pick up on our way to the concert.

We did eat and drive. The concert was at the World Arena, so we really didn't have far to travel. We always park outside of the World Arena, in the back of the Tinseltown parking lot (Why pay? It's only a short walk, and the exercise does us good!). Walking up to the World Arena, I can't tell you how many teens we saw (I guess he is popular with teenage girls and pre-teens), but I didn't care! I was so excited!

We went inside, had our tickets scanned, and found our seats. Our seats weren't too bad actually. We talked, and were anxious for the concert to start. 

The first opening band was Dan + Shay. I had never heard of them, but I am always excited to hear new music. They were actually pretty good! I wouldn't mind getting some of their songs from iTunes.

After Dan + Shay there was a bit of time while they reset the stage. We decided to take some more pictures to capture our excitement. 

Up next was Danielle Bradbery. Greg is a big fan of The Voice, and an even bigger fan of Blake Shelton, so he was super excited to see one of the singers Blake Shelton had coached. I did enjoy her music, but she seemed a little nervous up on stage (could you blame her?). 

Then it was finally time for Hunter Hayes!! We tried to contain ourselves, but we couldn't!!!!!

Of course we also had to make sure we got our "Duck Face" picture in (seems like that is the trend if you are out somewhere). 

Hunter Hayes was an AMAZING performer! He had awesome stage presence and kept the audience captivated the entire performance. My favorite song by him is "Wanted", and I was so bummed because I was planning on getting a video of him singing this. Unfortunately my phone died before he sang that song. (All those "selfies" I guess). 

For the record, that song was by far my favorite performance of the night! He also sang a new song from his upcoming album, Story Line. The song was called "Still Falling". It was beautiful and I look forward to playing that song at our 50th anniversary party (oh yes, I have thought about this). 

I will say, I did forget how LOUD indoor concerts were, and our ears were ringing when we were on our way out. 

This was so fun! I loved getting out and doing something we don't typically get to do anymore. I loved singing along to the songs while holding the hand of the love of my eternity!! Every time I looked over at him he would flash his smile and it was as if we were the only two in the arena with these wonderful artists serenading us! I felt like a teenager again (Oh and did I mention this was on a school night?!?! So, I felt like a REBEL teenager at that!).

 Music always seems to have this affect on me that plays with my emotions. I love my husband, but if there is a love song playing in the background, it seems as if that love is a bit more amplified. Does that make sense? 

Concerts have always been something we enjoyed doing together so we hope to do more in the future, if a performer we both enjoy happens to come along. 

Week 5: China Date

Back in February for Valentines Day I gave Greg a gift that would last a whole year! I got the idea from The Dating Divas (They are fabulous!)! I set it up so each month we would "visit" a different destination around the world. I printed a passport (where he gets to put stamps for every destination we "visit").

I have a website where I can print fake plane tickets, and we do different activities based on where our destination for the month happens to be. It's been a lot of fun! 

Our first destination was to France, in March we visited Ireland, and now in April our trip was to China. 

This date we did spend a little bit of money ($) due to picking up Chinese take out. I got beef and broccoli and Greg tried the orange chicken. We also got some egg drop soup to share. We meant to eat our dinner with chop sticks, but we forgot to ask for them when we went to pick up our dinner. (Bummer).

While enjoying our dinner we listened to some oriental music on Youtube, just to try and make the experience more authentic. 

After dinner we Googled the Chinese alphabet and attempted to write each other love letters using the alphabet. I'm not sure if we did this correctly, but it was fun writing them and then trying to decode them. 

Mine was pretty short, but I think it got the message across. 

Greg was a little more ambitious! :)

Can you figure out what they each say?! 

Week 4: Read Together

Hello everyone! This week we had a pretty low key date. The good news is that it was absolutely FREE! We took some time to just read together. No T.V., no phones. Just my man, me, and a book.

For those of you who know my husband, he is super laid back and is pretty much up for anything. I was totally kidding around with him when I suggested we read Twilight, or a Nicholas Sparks (my favorite author) selection, but Greg was all for it. :) He makes me smile.

I decided not to subject him to my love for total sappy love story novels, and we decided on the book Matched by Ally Condle. I have read this book once before and just loved it!

Unfortunately this blog post is going to be rather short, due to our date being short. We started out where I would read a chapter and then he would. I started, Greg read chapter 2, and by the end of chapter 3 my sweet husband was laying next to me snoring away. I am convinced it was because he was exhausted, not because he was bored. ;) 

This date was great because it was free, and we were able to just relax in the comfort of our own home. However, we both decided we probably wont do this one again until our kiddos are a bit older. After tending to the needs of the babies when they go to bed, staying up can be rather hard (especially if we are doing a relaxing activity such as reading.) It would be nice to see if we can get further in the book and eventually finish it together...I suppose we will have to see what happens. 

Week 3: Chopped Challenge

This week we picked the Chopped Challenge! I was actually super excited about this one! For those who aren't sure what the Chopped Challenge is, it is a show on T.V. where chefs are given four (quite random in my opinion) ingredients and they have to come up with a delicious dish incorporation all four ingredients. They are also given a time limit (30 minutes I believe).

To begin our date we started by going to the grocery store to pick out the ingredients we would use. We put our own twist on this and didn't do it quite as the show does. We decided I would create an appetizer (Greg would pick out the ingredients for me), Greg would create the main course (I would pick out his ingredients), and we would work on dessert together. The catch for dessert is I would pick out two ingredients and Greg would pick out the other two (without the other knowing what was picked) and we had to create something based on those four ingredients.

After picking our our ingredients we headed home and started cookin'!! For the appetizer Greg picked out for me an orange, small tortillas, cilantro, and chicken strips.

I didn't think this would be very difficult, but I was stumped by the orange for a bit.

I ended up adding a few extra ingredients that we had to my four in order to complete my appetizer. I included an onion, tomato, cheese, lemon juice, and some of the Mrs. Dash seasoning

I started by warming up the precooked chicken strips on the stove. I added some onion to cook with it and seasoned it a little more with the Mrs. Dash seasoning. I then make some pico de gallo by adding together some chopped onion, chopped tomato, chopped cilantro, lemon juice, and orange juice from the orange. 

When it was all completed I put all of in a small tortilla and added some cheese to make a taco. 

Voila!

Not to bad if I say so myself. It was really good too!! The orange gave it a slight sweet flavor, but was not overpowering. 

I was so excited to Greg to try it and as he took a bit this is the reaction I got...

SERIOUSLY?!?! I know it was not that bad. Turns out he was just teasing me and he actually really did like it. :) 

Once our appetizer was devoured, it was Greg's turn to get on with the main course. I wanted to give him a good challenge, so I picked out for him boneless beef ribs, a cantaloupe, vanilla wafers, and zucchini. 

Of course when I was picking out these ingredients I was brainstorming all kinds of ideas of how he would create a main course with these ingredients. I was sure he would make something with the cantaloupe and vanilla wafers as a side dish or something. He certainly surprised me though. 

Greg decided to crush the vanilla wafers and use them to bread the ribs. He cooked that up and then decided to add some zucchini to the mix. Then he did it...yes...he added cubed cantaloupe to his creation. With the remaining zucchini he fried it up with some season salt, and also cut up the rest of the cantaloupe to have on the size. I can be somewhat of a picky eater, so I was definitely nervous. 

Yes, the orange pieces you see above are the bits of cantaloupe...mixed with beef (that has been breaded with vanilla wafers) and zucchini. 

Greg was very excited to try his creation....

Me? Not so much.

To give him credit, it actually wasn't as horrible as I thought it would be. When he asked me if we should ever make it again I quickly said no!! It had kind of a savory/sweet flavor to it. It was...to say the least...interesting. 

My dear husband and his creative ideas. :)

Our last task was to complete a dessert together using four ingredients that we split and picked out without each other knowing the others ideas. Here is what we came up with...

I picked out sugar cookie mix, and cream cheese (yes, my thoughts were on a dessert pizza of some kind!). Greg chose french vanilla pudding mix and mini chocolate chips. This was not very difficult to come up with an idea! 

First we mixed the sugar cookie mix according to the directions, and spread it out like a pizza. We cooked it as directed on the package. While it was cooking we combined the cream cheese and the french vanilla pudding mix (we did not add milk at first, but ended up adding a little to help it mix better). 

When the cookie pizza crust cooled we spread on the french vanilla cream cheese "sauce" and then sprinkled the mini chocolate chips on top. It was actually very delicious! 

A great successful dessert to the end of an interesting meal. :)

We had a lot of fun on this date, and plan on doing it again! We gave this a $$ due to our ingredients coming up to just over $28 (anything over $20 is $$ or more). This date can easily be $ though based on what ingredients are picked out. It was a great challenge, and very interesting! 

Week 2: Dollar Date

As I'm sure many of us are, we are on a budget and can't always afford to do a lot of things we'd like to do. I spent a lot of time searching for fun ideas on Pinterest for a fun date that wouldn't brake the bank. I found a great idea from the Dating Divas blog (they are fantastic!). So...here is our take on the Dollar Date Night! 

We started by going to the Dollar Tree. Here we each got to pick out three things. 1. Something to use now 2. Something to use later and 3. Something for someone else. We had so much fun trying to pick out different things and putting them back and picking something else! In the end, this is what we came up with...

Greg picked out Dessert Skittles, a Cherry Coke, and a pink stuffed bunny. We had planned to go to a movie right after, so the Skittles were for now (yes, we did sneak them into the movie, shhh...), the Cherry Coke was for later, and the pink stuffed bunny was for Ella's (our daughter) Easter basket. 

I picked out Dessert Skittles, a Dr. Pepper, and a Jungle Book book. Similar to Greg, the Skittles were for the movie, the Dr. Pepper was for later, and the book was for Corbin's (our son) Easter basket. 

(For the record, most of these were my idea first, and Greg said that it was such a good idea he copied me) :)

Total dollar store cost: $6.42!

Next we took a short walk to the Picture Show, our local dollar movie. Unfortunately, movies here are only $1 on Tuesdays, and our date was not on a Tuesday. So, our tickets ended up being $1.75 each. 

HOWEVER, I had a coupon!!! (I LOVE coupons!!) We had a buy one get one free! 

We decided on the movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Neither of us had heard of it, but decided it was only $1.75 so if we ended up hating it, no big deal. We actually ended up loving it! What a great inspirational movie! So glad we went to see it. If you have not yet seen it, we do recommend it. 

Total movie cost: $1.75

 

After the movie it was time for some grub! We were starving!! We have a variety of fast food choices that have a dollar menu, but we ended up setting on McDonalds. We don't eat there often, so it was kind of a change for us. Unfortunately, the dollar menu has been renamed to the value menu, meaning some things are more than a dollar. We each chose 3 things from this menu. 

Greg picked a BBQ ranch burger, a spicy chicken sandwich, a small fry. I picked a BBQ ranch burger, a double cheese burger, and a small fry. Notice we used our dollar store "something for later" drink as our drink for lunch. 

Total lunch cost: $7.78

Total date cost: $15.95

A fun filled date for less than $20!!! We had so much fun too. I can't tell you how many times Greg said, "We should do this again! I can't believe we did so much on so little!"

Overall, we will do this date again sometime, maybe try a different dollar menu, and of course a different movie. We give this date $ since it was under $20. 

We did a lot of similar things that the Dating Divas did, but also put our own spin on it. If you are interested in seeing how their date turned out, you can check it out here.

Week 1: Italian Date

For week one we had an Italian themed date at home (kind of). This date I would rate with $ as we did have to pick up a few supplies, but overall did not have to spend a ton.

We decided to make homemade pizza first. We had to stop by our local grocery store to pick up some crust (we used the pre-made kind out of a can), cheese, pepperoni, and some Cherry Pepsi to wash it all down. We had a blast making the pizza together! Putting the pepperoni on our rectangular pizza I started on one side, and Greg was on the other. Greg (he can sometimes say things that are so sweet, yet corny at the same time) said,"This is just like our love, we started out separate and then came together!" (He was comparing it to the pepperoni meeting in the middle as we put more and more on.

Our pizza turned out delicious!!

The pepperoni is under the cheese, and the cheese was so stringy and gooey! YUM!!

While enjoying our pizza we watched a movie on Netflix! The movie choice of the night...The Italian Job! A perfect move (though not really Italian themed) because it was a movie we both would enjoy (that little love story for me and all the action for Greg). 

I love dates at home where we can relax, have fun, and be in the comfort of our pajamas!! I think we will, without a doubt, do a repeat of this date! 

Here we are about to watch our movie and enjoy our pizza! 

Looking forward to next weeks date!! 

So the challenge begins...

Greg and I have always had awesome dates! We used to be so creative and had a ton of fun. Then, it happened...we had kids!! Time seemed to slip away from us, all of our time was spent taking care of the kids, talking about the kids, planning for the kids, the kids, the kids, the kids!!!! What happened to us?!?! I was starting to feel like I wasn't getting enough time with Greg and that our marriage was starting to lose that initial spark that brought us together in the first place. We needed to take some time to date each other and to remember why we fell in love and why we enjoy each others company so much.

At our church they promote married couples to set aside some time at least once a week to have a date night. (By the way our church is awesome, you can check it out here, www.lds.org). We have decided to take on that challenge. I did not want to do just the normal dinner and a movie thing every weekend though (that will get old really fast), so we created a date jar. I'm sure many of you have seen it on Pinterest. It's a jar with lots of date ideas so you don't have to waste a lot of time coming up with an idea.

Well, I set to work on our date jar, and before I knew it I had over 100 different ideas for dates. Some are low key, and some take more planning. Some are free, some require a little bit of spending, and a few are more on the expensive side (for those few times we can splurge).

As I was creating my jar of dates I started to wonder, how many other people out there are stuck in the routine of dinner and a movie for every date night? So, for those of you who would like to start dating your spouse every week, or if you are looking for some other ideas  for dates, I wanted to post our journey of dates as we take the ultimate dating challenge of going on a date night EVERY WEEK!

How it works is we pick one date out of the jar for a few weeks in advance (that way if we need a bit of time to plan we can). We choose a day each week and BAM, date night is locked in. I'm so excited to do this, and Greg is excited to see what date ideas come out of the jar. I look forward to your comments and other date ideas I can add to our jar!