Despite my lack of blogging about it, my husband and I have continued to dayt each other this year;) I had a goal at the beginning of the year to strive to have each of our dayts actually be what they were "supposed to be," but reality is that doesn't always happen. We did end of modifying several of them, but it was worth it for sure! (Warning: really long post...)
March: Portland Art Museum/Voodoo Donuts
I honestly cannot remember why there wasn't time to do this dayt properly, but there were reasons. What we ended up doing instead was I walked down the street from my office to a new donut shop called Blue Star donuts and picked out a few for us to try. Their donuts were really good! They are more of a gourmet donut shop. My favorite that I tried was a lemon poppy seed. Delicious! We had our dayt night at home and ate donuts while watching a movie together after the kids went to bed. Sometimes my favorite way to dayt is staying home;)
March: Portland Art Museum/Voodoo Donuts
I honestly cannot remember why there wasn't time to do this dayt properly, but there were reasons. What we ended up doing instead was I walked down the street from my office to a new donut shop called Blue Star donuts and picked out a few for us to try. Their donuts were really good! They are more of a gourmet donut shop. My favorite that I tried was a lemon poppy seed. Delicious! We had our dayt night at home and ate donuts while watching a movie together after the kids went to bed. Sometimes my favorite way to dayt is staying home;)
April: Shooting Range
We ended up not going to a shooting range, but found a place out in the middle of no where that you can go and shoot. The only thing I had ever shot before was BB guns and it had been since I was at YW camp (so only a couple of years...) Andrew is in the military so even though his "job" doesn't require him to carry a weapon he is required to pass testing on his shooting skillz...and compared to me he has mad skillz for sure! I was more comfortable with it by the end of our dayt, but it didn't make a shooter out of me by any stretch of the imagination. Andrew thinks I picked this dayt just so that he would have to put his arms around me and hold me close while instructing me. I didn't realize it was that obvious!
May: Multnomah Falls Hike
This one we definitely did not end up doing. There was something going on every single time that Andrew had a day off and I was not really feeling that much like hiking. When I planned the dayts I didn't know I would be pregnant for most of them! Instead we ended up going out to dinner and just spending some time together. With crazy work schedules, 4 crazy kids, a baby on the way, and a billion other things I am fine with the laid back dayts where we can just get away and make a deal to not spend the time talking about the kids!
June: Hawaiian Experience
This was one I was looking forward to for a while! I found a really fun link on pinterest and decided that it would be just the type of stay at home dayt we needed. My original plan was to go to this amazing Hawaiian BBQ restaurant by our house, but then they had to go and go out of business so that ruined that plan. Instead I made Hawaiian Chicken and rice for dinner. The dayt ended up being broken up throughout the day since other things in life kept cropping up, but it was actually kind of fun that way. There ended up being times where we were just left anticipating what would come next. You can't have everyday be that way so it was a lot of fun!
July: County Fair
Shortly after Christmas Andrew found out that he was going to be out of town with the guard during the week of our county fair. I was so bummed about that! But, as time got closer that trip got canceled so he ended up being home!!!! I had never been to a county fair that I could remember, so it was all new to me. We went on Thursday night which ended up being the night for the Jr. Rodeo. Watching those little kids mutton bustin' was awesome! I showed Jonny and Reagan videos of it the next day and ever since Jonathan is convinced that he will someday be a mutton buster. We ate some BBQ pork, rode the Ferris wheel, and checked out all the animals. We made it just in time to watch them showing the pigs. I have no idea what makes the pigs a winner, but it was hilarious to watch anyways. Mainly it was funny because there were all these folks sitting around commenting on the pigs and their handlers "oh, look at the way she just did that" "that will cost them" "that's one impressive pig." All I saw were a bunch of teenagers walking around in a pig pen, dressed up fancy, carrying sticks and pushing their pigs around (all while smiling like they were on stage at a beauty contest!). I have no idea what we were supposed to be looking for... Andrew's favorite part of the night was the fact that he got to finally try a deep fried twinkie. It was okay in my opinion, but he loved it!
August: Ron Swanson Party
By far one of my favorite things we have ever done! Last summer I came across a blogger that threw a Ron Swanson birthday party for her sister and I was in awe. It was amazing! I showed Andrew and we both jokingly said that we wished we could have that type of party thrown for us. Then we decided to throw it for ourselves! 2013 would be the year for Andrew to turn 35 and me to turn 30 so it seemed like a good year for a joint birthday part a la Ron Swanson. I really should have taken more pictures, but other than that it was wonderful. I had ideas for games, but decided to scratch that and we socialized and had good conversation with good eating instead!
September: Backyard Oasis
At the end of last year we had talked about focusing on outdoor home improvements. I spent plenty of time pinning ideas on pinterest and we talked about what would be the best for our home and situation. Part of the original plan included outdoor furniture and moving the garden boxes. Well, that made me think it would be a lot of fun to fancy up the backyard one night and just have a camp out under the stars. Reality check: everything always takes more time and money than you think while life continues going on taking up even more time and money. Our original plans turned out to be rather ambitious. We did paint the house (still a few touch ups here and there as well as a shed to paint, but done enough!) and we got a huge load of bark dust dropped off to finally take care of some landscaping issues. But since the main thing I see in the backyard now is the tail end of a productive garden and a whole new crop of weeds we decided to change things up. Instead we headed over to the local high school to watch my "little" brother play football. He decided to join the football team for his senior year of high school and I wanted to make it to at least one game. We had a lot of fun! Sadly, his team ended up losing to one of the best teams in the state, but they put up a good fight nonetheless!
We ended up not going to a shooting range, but found a place out in the middle of no where that you can go and shoot. The only thing I had ever shot before was BB guns and it had been since I was at YW camp (so only a couple of years...) Andrew is in the military so even though his "job" doesn't require him to carry a weapon he is required to pass testing on his shooting skillz...and compared to me he has mad skillz for sure! I was more comfortable with it by the end of our dayt, but it didn't make a shooter out of me by any stretch of the imagination. Andrew thinks I picked this dayt just so that he would have to put his arms around me and hold me close while instructing me. I didn't realize it was that obvious!
May: Multnomah Falls Hike
This one we definitely did not end up doing. There was something going on every single time that Andrew had a day off and I was not really feeling that much like hiking. When I planned the dayts I didn't know I would be pregnant for most of them! Instead we ended up going out to dinner and just spending some time together. With crazy work schedules, 4 crazy kids, a baby on the way, and a billion other things I am fine with the laid back dayts where we can just get away and make a deal to not spend the time talking about the kids!
June: Hawaiian Experience
This was one I was looking forward to for a while! I found a really fun link on pinterest and decided that it would be just the type of stay at home dayt we needed. My original plan was to go to this amazing Hawaiian BBQ restaurant by our house, but then they had to go and go out of business so that ruined that plan. Instead I made Hawaiian Chicken and rice for dinner. The dayt ended up being broken up throughout the day since other things in life kept cropping up, but it was actually kind of fun that way. There ended up being times where we were just left anticipating what would come next. You can't have everyday be that way so it was a lot of fun!
July: County Fair
Shortly after Christmas Andrew found out that he was going to be out of town with the guard during the week of our county fair. I was so bummed about that! But, as time got closer that trip got canceled so he ended up being home!!!! I had never been to a county fair that I could remember, so it was all new to me. We went on Thursday night which ended up being the night for the Jr. Rodeo. Watching those little kids mutton bustin' was awesome! I showed Jonny and Reagan videos of it the next day and ever since Jonathan is convinced that he will someday be a mutton buster. We ate some BBQ pork, rode the Ferris wheel, and checked out all the animals. We made it just in time to watch them showing the pigs. I have no idea what makes the pigs a winner, but it was hilarious to watch anyways. Mainly it was funny because there were all these folks sitting around commenting on the pigs and their handlers "oh, look at the way she just did that" "that will cost them" "that's one impressive pig." All I saw were a bunch of teenagers walking around in a pig pen, dressed up fancy, carrying sticks and pushing their pigs around (all while smiling like they were on stage at a beauty contest!). I have no idea what we were supposed to be looking for... Andrew's favorite part of the night was the fact that he got to finally try a deep fried twinkie. It was okay in my opinion, but he loved it!
August: Ron Swanson Party
By far one of my favorite things we have ever done! Last summer I came across a blogger that threw a Ron Swanson birthday party for her sister and I was in awe. It was amazing! I showed Andrew and we both jokingly said that we wished we could have that type of party thrown for us. Then we decided to throw it for ourselves! 2013 would be the year for Andrew to turn 35 and me to turn 30 so it seemed like a good year for a joint birthday part a la Ron Swanson. I really should have taken more pictures, but other than that it was wonderful. I had ideas for games, but decided to scratch that and we socialized and had good conversation with good eating instead!
September: Backyard Oasis
At the end of last year we had talked about focusing on outdoor home improvements. I spent plenty of time pinning ideas on pinterest and we talked about what would be the best for our home and situation. Part of the original plan included outdoor furniture and moving the garden boxes. Well, that made me think it would be a lot of fun to fancy up the backyard one night and just have a camp out under the stars. Reality check: everything always takes more time and money than you think while life continues going on taking up even more time and money. Our original plans turned out to be rather ambitious. We did paint the house (still a few touch ups here and there as well as a shed to paint, but done enough!) and we got a huge load of bark dust dropped off to finally take care of some landscaping issues. But since the main thing I see in the backyard now is the tail end of a productive garden and a whole new crop of weeds we decided to change things up. Instead we headed over to the local high school to watch my "little" brother play football. He decided to join the football team for his senior year of high school and I wanted to make it to at least one game. We had a lot of fun! Sadly, his team ended up losing to one of the best teams in the state, but they put up a good fight nonetheless!
2 comments:
So cool! I love reading about your fun and realistic dayts!! Thanks to pinterest, Mark and I have done a lot more creative dating. It is still hard to find things to do in a small town, but just being together counts! P.S. we have officially tried every milkshake in town and now have our favorite. Hope you had an awesome bday!! I thought you might like that necklace, but maybe it was too bling?!?!
That is so super cute. And fun! I love your dayt ideas and the things you do. I could not agree more--the big part is just BEING TOGETHER. Even if the dayts are not what you thought they would be. I love seeing what you do. We are boring--we go out every week, but it's almost always dinner. But we look forward to it every time because no matter what, it's a break from "real life," and we need it. And we need it TOGETHER.
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