Christmas Lights Date Night!

Sorry for the late post- Monday was a bit of a crazy day! But I didn’t want to leave you hanging so I am coming to you with a great holiday date night idea! Going to see Holiday Lights!

I am sure many of you are in the same boat as me. December is a crazy month. Between shopping, holiday parties and the end of the year craziness at work there just isn’t enough time in a day. This time of year can be the time of year we forget to show our loved ones how much we care- and this is the time we need to try extra hard!

I am all about Christmas! I will hum, sing, dance to any Christmas song pretty much all month. I love the Christmas movies (even the lifetime ones) and I love any excuse to get in the Christmas spirit. That is why Christmas lights are one of my favorite ways to spend a date night.

Last year we had our first date at a shrine near my house seeing their lights. It was cold but the lights were gorgeous and it was a great time just talking and getting to know each other.

This year we went to a shrine near his house and his mother and sister tagged along. We had a lot of fun. We sang christmas tunes, snapped some great pictures and warmed up with a nice cup of hot cocoa.

 

Although he wasn’t the biggest fan of the Christmas tunes I still had one Christmas song stuck in my head all night which I will leave you all with.

What is your favorite holiday date night idea?

Sharknado Date Miss!

One way you know my blog is not a reality show is that unexpected things happen. And not always positive ones. It doesn’t matter how much thought I put into date nights, sometimes they do not work out. Sometimes things happen and we aren’t able to do them like I had hoped. But, that doesn’t mean I can’t share my plans with you so maybe some of you can have success with them.

This date night that never came to be was Sharknado date night. I had heard this movie was funny with a sci-fi theme so I figured it was perfect for us. I checked a few months back and he hadn’t seen it yet so on the list it went. The invite did make it to his car and it looked like this:

But that is as far as the date got. On my way home from work that day I got a phone call that went a little like this:

Him: “Hey so I got your invite and you wouldn’t have gone as far back as Jaws for this one, right?”

Me: “No, why…?”

Him: Because I may have watched Sharknado on Netflix not too long ago…I’m sorry.

And that was that. Date night was squashed. We still had a good time together but never got to our Sharknado theme. In some ways it is good because I never quite settled on the activity. Here were the two main options in my head:

1) Saving Tara Reid: Basically I would fill plastic cups with water. One cup i the middle would have shark teeth on it and the goal is to get the objects into the shark teeth cup to save Tara Reid.

2) Adopt a Shark: This one would involving adopting a shark here and playing a game to come up with the name. Basically each of us would get a letter and 60 seconds and whoever came up with the best name in that time would win.

So even though this date night didn’t become a reality it doesn’t mean it can’t be for you. If you try it out please let me know what activity you picked and how it worked out!

Have a sharktastic week!

Pumpkin Carving Date Night!

I will start this post off with a confession. I tried to make this post my first Youtube video and failed miserably! There are a lot of things you learn about yourself when you try to make a video. For one I hate the way I talk! For some reason my mouth moves in such an odd way that looks awful in video. Also, it is hard to make things not boring when you are the only person in the video! I think it will take a lot more time to try and make a good channel.

Anyways it is Halloween and I could not leave you guys without a Halloween post! This year our Halloween themed date was pumpkin carving. Can you believe I have never carved a pumpkin on my own?! I was dying to do this though because I just adore pumpkin seeds! Way too yummy and a great treat to end a date night!

So we started early in the week getting our ideas ready. He knew he wanted to do a puking pumpkin because he thought it looked fun and I knew I wanted to do a minion. Of course neither of these designs come in those handy books they provide with the tools. So online search I went!

I got a great stencil for him but mine didn’t work out so well. So I just drew what I wanted and it came out okay for a first try.

The great thing about this date night is it allowed lots of time to talk and be silly while still not being bored! It was a great time and our pumpkins look pretty cool.

Did you guys have any great Halloween date nights? Tell me about them!

My version of Choctoberfest!

Sometimes when I begin planning a date night I decide to throw all my previous ideas out the window and go with something that someone else has already perfected and make it my own. Coming off of a failed date night I wanted to be sure this date night was a win. And it was…in some ways.

This date night is eloquently titled “Choctoberfest” by the Dating Divas. I get lots of ideas and inspiration from them so it should come as no surprise that this date came from them with a little of my own twist to it. I love the idea of Oktoberfest but I knew that a date in the house was preferable to a big party with lots of drinking so this date night was a perfect fit for us.

To see the Dating Divas date click here!

The thing I loved about their date was the chocolate fountain. Now of course being on a budget a chocolate fountain was not possible for me…but that doesn’t mean chocolate fondue is out of the question.

Instead of a chocolate fountain I bought bags of chocolate chips and melted them in the microwave. Simple as that. I now had a bowl of melted chocolate ready for dipping!

From here we needed to decide what we were gonna dip. The dating divas also made chocolate treats so their dipping items were not very extensive. We were using this food to eat for the night so we needed a bit more options. We came up with a pretty decent spread:

The only thing I didnt get out that I wanted to was the bacon. Chocolate covered bacon is amazing and I really wanted my boyfriend to try it but time constraints made that not happen. Next time!

And finally as always with my date nights I had to have a movie to pair with it. This time the movie was appropriately “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

The boy had never seen it and I hadnt seen it in awhile. Its not my favorite Johnny Depp movie but it has some fun parts so it was a nice silly distraction from daily life.

So my friends I ask you, what is your favorite thing to dip in chocolate?

AirForce One Date Night

I know this post is a day late and I missed my post on Friday BUT I got a new job! I now do sales and marketing for a local print shop. And guess what? I love my boss! It is great to work with people who like to hear your input and appreciate your efforts.

But enough about my sob story as to why I am delayed in blogging and on to the post!

Now as I told you before, all my date nights do not go over great. There are times I just miss the mark. This was one of those times. I am still sharing the date with you in hopes that it might be a home-run for someone else.

The movie this date night revolved around was AirForce One. This was my first mistake. Although my boyfriend is a huge war movie buff, he had already seen this movie and was not in love with it. I still need to check the movie out but because of this theme, he was less than enthused about the date.

I started the night by sending him a text with this challenge:

I thought this would be a fun way to end a long day. What I didnt realize is that he was exhausted from his day at work and did not really want to be doing anything too physical. Fail.

The other part of this that failed on my end is I never got around to doing the little “extras” that make the night that much better. I had planned to make some water bottle airplanes but never got around to it.

So needless to say this was a date night that failed but could be some fun for you.

I am always curious of your thoughts. What do you think could’ve been done to save this date night?

Lego Date Night!

I know you guys love when I post my date nights, so I am back to post another one! I will admit this one was a bit lame because money was tight so I am going to add a little section on how I would add to the date if I could do it again.

So this date night was centered around the “Lego Movie”. I decided I wanted to do this because my little nephew constantly has references like “where is my pants?” and “Everything is awesome” (be on the look-out for this song in Friday’s blog.) I knew at this point that we had to see the movie and since I knew my boyfriend absolutely adored legos as a kid I thought this was a perfect combination for date night!

Now my original plan was to have the night’s “activity” be where we create characters from movies out of legos. The person who got the closest to making a lego version of a character would win a prize. However I quickly learned that buckets of legos just aren’t sold in stores. According to my by, you must buy multiple sets of legos and create your own bins to have such a thing. Who knew? So this is the activity we settled on:

Not bad for one night but there was so much more we could have added to make the theme that much better. 

How about a lego costume?

Or lego food?

Or even this awesome lego game?

What would you have added to this date night to make it more legotastic?

Zombie Date Night

Now you guys know I love sharing my date nights with you, which is why I have another one to share. However, in the spirit of honesty I will tell you this one did not turn out the way I had hoped. After planning the night the boyfriend actually hurt himself at work and was unable to partake in the “activity” part of the night. That is now on our “to-do” list. But I will share the night as it should have gone.

Recently I got my boyfriend into the Walking Dead and we finished all the episodes available on Netflix. Not quite ready to end the zombie fun I decided to make a date outta it. This is what I came up with…

When he got home he was as usual greeted with his front door indicator. This time, this is what he saw:

Then when he came in the house he was served dinner. Now dinner was a bit harder to decide on because I mean really what is there to eat during a zombie apocalypse? All I could think was twinkies but that is not exactly dinner. So I decided to go a little creepy with it:

Worm on a Bun

When you are desperate anything looks appetizing right?

Then once dinner was over he was handed his zombie survival kit:

Crude I know. But it did its job. In it was scratch tickets, squirt gun and the activity portion: Groupon to have an archery lesson!

My thought was the best way to kill zombies would be to take after my Walking Dead man crush Darrel, bow and arrow the suckers!

He was super excited but sadly couldn’t do it. I am hoping we will make use of the groupon soon though!

Anyways what did you think of our zombie date night?

Carnival Themed Date Night!

If you have been reading this blog awhile, you know I am afraid of clowns. For anyone who needs a refresher, check this post out about my encounter with a twitter clown. To sum it up, I am petrified. Needless to say when my boyfriend found out Stephen King’s “It” will be remade and in theaters in 2015 he can’t stop talking about it. He finds my fear so funny that he has threatened to hide a clown in the house for me to find one night when I come home. So I decided the only way to beat it, is join him.

I made a date night out of it. I figured if the movie wasn’t the only focus I would have an easier time getting through it and hopefully taking a little of the fun out for him. So when he came home from work he found this:

Problem was the invite was a bit too small and he is basically oblivious to the world around him. Note to self: next time making a neon sign style invite so he can’t miss it.

From there he was served carnival style food. I. E Chili dogs and fries! The plan was to also serve caramel apples for dessert but unfortunately I ran outta time. For anyone who is gonna replicate this date at home, make time for those caramel apples!

After Dinner was served it was time for a little carnival style game! What better game than a ring toss? I used beer bottles and paper plates with a hole cut out in the middle. If you are a ring toss expert, definitely try this! It is hard to do but not impossible. If you are ring toss impaired like apparently we are I would try something heavier, maybe a roll of duct tape. We found the plate had a mind of its own and we had quite a tough time. But it was still lots of fun!

Now whats a carnival game without a prize right? Well I don’t know if you remember my Viking Date Night, but if you do you will remember that the winner of that game had to pay for dinner. Well as the loser I didn’t wanna make that mistake two times in a row. So this time I went with a cheaper but still fun alternative.

Of course I lost the Ring Toss (well actually he got one plate on the bottle and we realized that we should quit while we were ahead). But there was not a winner in the bunch! Oh well!

And then it was time to sit down and suffer through enjoy the movie. I have to say I did pretty good until it was over. After the movie was over I had to shut the curtains in the shower to go to the bathroom, I woke up in the middle of the night convinced a shadow on my wall was a person and I was convinced leaving my closet door open was asking for trouble.

But I made it through! That is saying something and it has definitely quieted down the taunting (for now). What do you think of my Carnival Themed Date Night?

Viking Date Night!

There is a saying that I really love that says, “Find joy in the ordinary”. I really love this quote because it is a reminder that even the simplest things in life can make us happy if we take the time to enjoy it. I have really been trying to live my life by this reminder lately. Things haven’t been all that easy while I search for a job and it becomes far too simple to forget the joy in the simple things. Things could always be worse and its important to enjoy what we do have.

With this in mind I set up a little date night for my man to try and bring a little joy to an ordinary thursday night. Not too long ago he mentioned to me that “How to Train Your Dragon 2” is a movie he wants to go see with me when it comes out. He was astonished to learn I never saw the first one. So I decided to set up a fun little night to fix that.

I did some internet research and learned that the movie was about Vikings and Dragons. This is what the boy found on the door when he got home:

After he read the sign he entered to dinner prepared for him. I found this blog post and decided to make a dinner of Pork and Veggies.

Also on the above blog I got the idea to try and make some grog. I couldn’t use the recipe she shared because it had almonds and I am allergic so I tried this one.

After a sip or two we both decided grog was not for us. But I will admit I was a bit heavy handed with the rum…

Now no date night is complete without a little fun. If you noticed on the sign I challenged him to a game of Spoon Frog. Here is what it looked like when he walked in for the game:

This game comes from the game show “Minute to Win i”. Basically the goal is to get the second spoon to catapult in the cup by hitting the first one. We didn’t time the game we just said after a little practice that the first to three is the winner. He of course won.

We then got to enjoy the movie together and relax for the rest of the night. All in all it turned out to be a pretty fun date night. Anyone who wants to try the game here is the blueprint from the tv show to teach you how to do it.

 

Has anyone else had a Viking style date night?