Costume Party

M&R
Date #32
Costume Party

Hey! It's true. We are still alive and it seems as though we have completely and utterly failed our goal of one date night a week for a year. [head hung in shame]

I've learned a couple of things. It turns out that having a husband who works 60+ very inconsistent hours each week is not very conducive to planning date nights. You know what else, we are learning that without grandparents around, ya just gotta bite the bullet and pay for a babysitter. Otherwise friends and neighbors are going to grow weary of babysitting trades and favors. I don't want to be that friend that people avoid because they are afraid of what is going to be asked of them. As cheapskate as this might make me sound, it's hard to cough up babysitting money on top of any costs for a date, but, I think it's just time. It definitely is more convenient having the babysitter come to you though.

Anyway!! This dating thing has turned out to be more challenging than I thought. But, we will never ever give up! So here I am, with what should be Date #43, but instead it's Date #32.

We received an invitation to a Halloween costume party. We were supposed to go as characters from a book called Fablehaven, which I know nothing about. So I Wikipedia'd it (didn't you know that's a verb?) and found some characters to imitate. Hubby and I aren't crazy about costumes, but we threw something together. I made some cat ears and a tail (for $1.71 thank you very much!) and went as a black cat. Hubby was "the Grey Assassin".

The party was so so fun!! We only knew the hosts, but they know how to choose a good crowd, because we didn't feel awkward the whole time. The company was fantastic, and hilarious, and they had plenty of games and food to keep us busy and entertained the entire time.

There was a best costume competition and we obviously didn't come close. Maybe next year!

Down Time

B+C

Date #24

Dinner and Internet at home

J offered to babysit for us and we happily accepted! Thank you, J!!

Since we hadn't really thought about it ahead of time we just stayed home. I'm a little embarrassed by how many of our dates have taken place at home. I have a great time, anyway. I AM a home body. I just feel kind of lame doing the same thing each week. Please don't judge. At least we're trying! : )

aaaaaaanyway,

I had already planned for dinner at home, so I went ahead and made dinner for us and then we watched funny things on the internet and looked at art online.

B and I both have a need for a creative outlet, so we enjoy doing artsy things together.

We watched bad lip readings and died laughing, and then we checked out the cool hunter and dreamed about the day when we have a house to fill up with art. We loved the Cate Parr watercolors, Theo Altenberg's AH-mazing oil paintings, and the Francoise Neilly paintings. I guess we like a lot of color. There's some WAY cool stuff on this site (hence the title i guess). We could've spent hours looking. It's so amazing what people can think up and bring to life, and I absolutely LOVE that my hub and I share a passion for it.

SOFTBALL!

D&T

Date #41

D and I got invited to play in some tournament softball games.  We LOVE playing softball together but have hardly been able to play together since the kids came along (we switch off playing seasons so the other one can watch the kiddos - although D is nice and usually I get to play cause teams always need girls and softball is MY sport and he can do just about anything).   We were so excited to play together.  My In-laws were the babysitter and they decided to bring the kids to watch - and we loved the family cheerleaders.  Even though it ended up a family night activity, we still counted it as a date cause we just got to be together doing something we loved with no parental responsibility for an hour! 

Temple Night

D&T

Date # 40

This weeks date was Ward Temple Night!  We had lots of stuff come up that almost got in the way - but we were determined!  It was a great, calming date.  Although we don't actually spend much time TOGETHER :), it was fun to get dressed up for each other.

Wedding Dinner Dating

D & T

Date # 39

D's cousin is getting married this week so we were able to attend the wedding dinner up at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.  Food was GREAT - the company was AWESOME - and the mood was so romantic in celebration of the upcoming wedding.  We LOVED it!  It ended up being WAY longer than planned so BIG thanks to our great friends and babysitters . . .

I am having serious issues with uploading pictures from phones to just about anywhere - but here is the best I could do for now. 

J+D

Dates 35, 36, & 37

I'm going to count our little weekend adventures as three dates since we had a little patch during the summer when we couldn't get out together.

I hope that's okay...

Our trip was a busy trip, to say the least--but so super fun!

Thursday evening we flew to LA where my brother picked us up and took us to his lovely family (and abode). After staying up a bit too late laughing, munching, and playing with Ike and Toe, we hit the sac (aka air mattress) and planned to get up around 5:30 to hit the road in the BUG---the car we were to bring home to Utah for mi madre.

Friday morning, as planned, we were on the road super early to drive up north to San Francisco.

We got there around lunch time, so we had some of the Wharf's famous Clam Chowder in sour dough bread bowls as we walked around the pier....

...before hopping on a ferry and taking a site seeing cruise around the bay (this is Alcatraz and my hot hubby)

And this is the Golden Gate Bridge--you can see my tour headphones

(we got to see some dolphins, too!!!)

and

then we watched some hilarious street performers and visited the sea lions

And then we ate some ice cream and chocolate at Guiradelli Square before taking a trolley

up to China Town

before we drove down Lumbard Street.........

And by that time we were thinking we'd better get to our hotel so that we could get the kids down.....

But wait, we didn't have any kids with us....

So we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge into Sausalito and had a fabulous dinner together.

And then we were pooped so we (I) zonked on the bed only to wake up at 3 am and find that I hadn't changed into my jammies. We were just that tired.

But we slept in and headed up to the Muir Woods in Marin County and

spent the morning hiking in the gorgeous Redwoods

and when we were finished there, we drove into Sausalito and walked all around the docks looking, admiring over, and wishing we had a sailboat of our own until it was time to go meet up with....

....some of our dear friends who have recently moved to the Bay Area, The Corotans!

We had a lovely lunch/dinner with them, had a quick photoshoot, and then off we went....

...back in the car on another road trip up to Reno where we had a super late meal and a very fast snooze before we got up early again to drive back home to Utah.

Phewwwwwwwwww.

It was incredibly FAST and incredibly FUN

(Dustin and I are great road trippers together...we love the same music, we laugh a ton, have a ton to talk about, can joke around and be dorks in the privacy of our own little space, and just have a great time driving)

And not too surprisingly, we missed our kiddos a TON.

We were so glad we went, so glad we have a great relationship to make it a fabulous weekend without any blips, and a whole gaggle of family members to take great care of our babies at home while we were away!!!

Yay for love!

Yay for a lovely trip!