Temple and a Tree (12-10-11)

Our date started at D.I. as we scoured the store looking for a "Yard Sale" gift for Jeff's sister. When we saw an ice-cream machine, we knew we found a winner. My parents make homemade ice-cream often and I think it's a fun tradition to have.

We also found our second fake Christmas tree of the season. Jeff has been wanting some greenery in our house for a while and we ended up finding a nice fake plant for $15. Before we had time to think we were already walking out of the store with our new tree and wondering if it would fit in our car. It was a little tight.

We dropped Eli off at my parents' and went to the temple. I was attacked on our way.

We got dinner and popcorn with my parents and the Goldens and then we had to hurry home to decorate our new tree.

I originally thought this tree was another perfect tree for a toddler infested home with the ornaments and lights being just out of reach.

Eli soon started pointing to the tree and calling all the ornaments balls. Then he found wrapping paper and toy bats to hit the tree with so the "balls" would come flying off. After he got sick of that, he found he just needed to shake the tree to wiggle the ornaments loose. Our tree didn't stay decorated for very long.

We spent the evening watching our favorite shows together -- Parks and Rec, The Office, and Modern Family.

Sarah High - Finding the ice-cream machine at D.I.
Sarah Low - Driving around with leaves in my face for half the day.

Jeff High - Finding the tree.
Jeff Low - (We can't remember. I'm a little behind on my documenting.)

Festival of Trees (12-4-11)

I heard about the Festival of Trees this year and thought it would make for a fun date night. As luck would have it, we were already headed south last weekend for our niece Kaelynn's baptism and her brother's baby blessing. It worked out perfectly to stop by for some tree gazing on our way home.

It was freezing cold and very busy since we went the last night it was open. But we made do. And looked cute wandering around in our Sunday best.

We documented all things Jimmer for Jacob's sake. Here's the first shrine.

Jeff spotted a tree made in our family blog's honor.

Jeff was pleased to see he made the nice list this year. But disappointed that Santa spelled his name wrong.

It only took about five minutes before Eli was screaming "All done! All done!" -- his trademark move these days. Here was one of our many efforts to keep him entertained.

Here's an "Up" tree.

A very Jimmer Christmas.

The tree that accompanied the Jimmer jersey.

We ignored the "No Outside Food or Drinks" signs hoping if Eli's mouth was full of marshmallows he wouldn't scream quite as loud. It worked.

"A Christmas Story." I've only seen this movie once. It was with Jeff when we were first starting to like each other. How romantic.

"Harry Potter" tree. Jeff's brother-in-law, Ben, told us to watch for this tree. His friend submitted this one and Ben had actually helped with it.

If I understood correctly, Ben shot a bullet through this book. Good aim.

The Cougars were even represented among the gingerbread houses.

Confession: We almost skipped the gingerbread houses all together with Eli being less than cooperative. But once we whipped out those snacks and made our way back towards dancers and music, Eli was a pretty happy camper. Boy am I glad we were able to see the gingerbread houses because I ended up liking them even more than the trees. The detail was incredible!

Another confession: One day in 8th grade my science teacher was gone and he left the substitute with a documentary on Stonehenge for us to watch. I took a weird liking to the movie and ever since then Stonehenge has been at the top of my dream vacations list.

The funniest part of this is I've been embarrassed of my love for Stonehenge, but I had just opened up to Jeff about it for the first time about a week before our date. We spent a good hour talking about the ancient rocks and we tentatively made our unlikely vacation plans to England.

So when we saw this creation we were a little tickled:

And then there was the White House.

I can't even imagine making just one of those flags. Props to whoever did this. I will forever wonder how long it took to piece together.

Since Eli spent the morning being reverent at a baptism, the evening strapped to a stroller and several hours confined to his car seat, we made a pit stop on the way home to reward him for his good behavior.

McDonald's. With a play place no less. A play place that sometimes results in pictures of what looks like your baby through a bug's eye.

And a play place that disorients your child with so much excitement that they forget where their mouth is.

Eli LOVES slides. The whole time we were there he screamed "SLI!...SLI!..." over and over. He was in heaven. Well, we brought the toy from Eli's Happy Meal to church with us last week. As soon as Jeff got it out of the bag, Eli started screaming about slides again. It's funny to see the things he puts together.

When I was little I loved finding my Mom from every window of play places like this. It was fun to be on the other side of play place hide-and-go-seek as I watched Eli wave at us through the windows, full of giddiness. Being a parent is the best.

Jeff High - Finding the Harry Potter tree because we nearly missed it.
Jeff Low - The crowds.

Sarah High - We actually made a quick stop at IKEA as well. I stumbled across a kid rug that looks like a road. We're planning on making Eli a car room so the new baby can have the dino room, and I thought that rug would be a fun thing for his room to have. I'd found one online for $25, but the IKEA one was way bigger for $15. I was thrilled when I found it and it has already given me lots of inspiration for Eli's new room!
Sarah Low - Also fighting the crowds at The Festival of Trees.

Black Friday (11-25-11)

Sure. You always hear how crazy Black Friday is. The shoving. The lines. The incredible sales. The excitement.

Jeff and I had never experienced the madness for ourselves. We came up with the brilliant idea to sleep at my parents' house Thanksgiving night so we could hit the midnight deals with Eli in their care.

We didn't have any big ticket items we were looking for. I was more interested in seeing what all the hype was about.

We left the house at 9:50 for the 10:00 sales at Wal-Mart. We were welcomed by a filled parking lot with cars lining the streets for miles. Jeff and I were completely shocked. And that was before we even went inside.

Inside, every aisle was a sea of gridlocked customers chatting frantically on cell phones about who's getting what deal. It was the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. I've vowed to never see it again. We were outta there within five minutes of walking through the doors.

A Salt Lake mall was opening its doors at 12:00, so we made our way down there to see what that was like. It looked significantly less crazy when we pulled up at 11:00 to a very short line and an almost empty parking lot. We decided to find a Denny's to kill some time before our 12:00 shopping spree.

Perhaps I spent many of my high school mornings at Denny's as I escaped class for a sip of hot chocolate. And perhaps their hot chocolate is still as good as it was five years ago.

Jeff went big and ordered us an appetizer and he got a meal.

I was still full on Thanksgiving dinner so my hot chocolate sufficed my midnight cravings. (Can you tell I'm not used to staying up past 10:00 anymore? I look kind of like a zombie.)

We chatted about Germany for most of the night. I love to hear about Germany. We had a lot of fun.

I called my brother as we were finishing up at Denny's to see if Eli was still asleep. My plan was not to have my Mom up wrestling a screaming Eli all night so we could Black Friday shop. So when I found out he was in fact up and screaming, and had been for the past two hours, we thought it best to head back to our parenting responsibilities.

Our date ended with a hyper Eli up and ready to play from 12:00 - 2:30.

Sarah High - Chatting with Jeff at Denny's.
Sarah Low - Eli not sleeping. If only he knew all the Christmas presents he prevented himself from getting.

Jeff High - Experiencing Black Friday for the first time.
Jeff Low - Being trapped at Wal-Mart with no escape.

An Almost Box Social (11-18-11)

Through a series of running into the right people at the right time the beginning of my sophomore year of college, a group formed. A group that met together every Sunday night to play games and be together. This event became known as a "Box Social" and we're still not exactly sure what that means. Well, I'm not sure anyway.

Marriages happened and people moved away. The Box Socials died a sudden death.

Until last Friday when most of the core Box Socialites realized we'd all relocated to northern Utah and we figured we needed to get together and see if the fire was still there.

Rewind. Before you can fully enjoy our date night, you must know how it started. And you must know I'm horrible with directions. Jeff and I planned to have Jeff ride the train into Woods Cross so that we could drive down to Salt Lake together. I'd just pick him up at the station and we'd be on our way. Simple. Perfect. Eco friendly.

Well, eco friendly until I find myself driving around for forty five minutes trying to find the Woods Cross train station in a blizzard in the dark. Not to mention, I had the stress of knowing my husband was stranded out in that blizzard waiting for my arrival.

I almost cried. I really didn't think I'd ever find the station. I had to call my Dad so I could have personalized navigation through the very confusing Utah grid system...

I eventually found my nearly frostbitten husband. He said he would have expected nothing less from me.  And then he gave me very specific directions on how to drive to Salt Lake while he blasted the heat and rubbed his hands together for extra warmth.

We met our friends at The Macaroni Grill and it was as if we'd never been apart. Allow me to introduce you to: Kenz, Andy, Joe and Brianne.

And now allow me to note that my Mom was a saint and took Eli for a few hours so we could fully enjoy our meal and company. (Thanks a million, Mom!)

My favorite part of the night was when Brianne asked me if we had a name picked out for the new baby. I told her we're thinking about the name Carson. To which Kenz said, "I've only met really nice Carsons, so I think that's a great name. Wait...was that stereotypical?"

Joe answered, "No. It would have been stereotypical if you would have said ALL Carsons are nice." Then one way or another everyone started calling Kenz a "Carsist."

Eventually Joe said my favorite comment of the night which was, "Is there a less offensive name we could call Carson?"

To which Jeff said, "Yes. Carson is only the name they use amongst themselves."

It was hilarious. And after typing this out I'm realizing it was probably a "had to be there" moment.

 Kenz and Andy quickly took advantage of the creative outlet.

We were noisy and obnoxious and that's how you know you've had a really good time. It was fun to get the group together again.

Jeff High - "Getting to go to a restaurant without Eli...wait...is that bad?" (We love you, Eli. Even if we don't always want to wrestle you when we go to fancy restaurants.)
Jeff Low - Almost being stood up on our date.

Sarah High - Carsist.
Sarah Low - We paid $5.00 in parking and I knew there was free parking somewhere close. Staying true to my inner lack of direction, I just didn't know exactly where that free parking was.

UNO Fine Date (11-11-11)

We didn't really realize our date was on 11.11.11 until just now when I typed the title of our date. But I'm really regretting not taking advantage of that theme! I guess we'll have to wait for the next 11.11.11 to start the tradition of playing UNO on the one filled date.

Despite our missed theme opportunity, we still had a fun time. Ever heard of IKEA? I could spend all day there. We were on the hunt for some storage boxes for our entertainment center and we didn't mind rummaging through the whole store in the meantime.

Everything in IKEA is cheap and cute! It probably makes my top 5 favorite stores list. Especially because you can get fro-yo for $1 as you're leaving the store. Can't pass that up.

Luckily we had our IKEA date when Jeff's parents were in town for a BYU game. They were so nice to let us barge in on their dinner with Ben and Laura.

Ben and Laura had arranged for a babysitter to watch their kids during their date. When Eli started acting up I was wishing we'd gotten a sitter and I was feeling bad for ruining their childless date...sorry!

Would you believe me if I told you Eli loves salsa? No? He was quadruple dipping his chips in it! He got a bit restless so Jeff gave him a lollipop to try to keep him entertained and he even started dipping that in the salsa! Mi nino es loco!

When the lollipop didn't entertain him anymore, Grandpa Excell saved us by getting him some Skittles to munch on. That did the trick!

Sarah High - Watching Eli dip everything into the salsa.
Sarah Low - I had a headache most of the night.

Jeff High - Finding the storage boxes we went to IKEA for.
Jeff Low - Eli at dinner. It's always a battle.

Geocaching (11-7-11)

Our date started with a nice dinner that I thought looked fancy (despite mac and cheese being part of the meal) so I took a picture of it:

And then we hit the neighborhood to go geocaching. Never heard of it? I'll let Wikipedia do the explaining.

If you were too lazy to click the Wikiepdia link, think treasure hunting with a GPS. I brought the treasure maps.

And then I tried to include Eli in a picture. These are my new favorite pictures -- the ones with Eli lurking in the shadows.

Or I also like the date pictures with items strategically placed in front of Eli's face...

So here's Jeff being cold and looking for the capsule.

On the geocaching website, all the pro geocachers called anyone who wasn't geocaching Muggles. I thought that was funny. So we were calling everyone Muggles all night.

It's hard to be inconspicuous to Muggles when you're circling a tree searching high and low. We were not successful in our treasure hunt. We tried three geocaches and we didn't find a single treasure! Bust!

It was a fun date, but we agreed it would be a better summer date with more daylight and more warmth.

Jeff High - Calling everyone Muggles.

Jeff Low - Not finding anything.

Sarah High - Keeping an eye on the compass as we drove around town to find out where we needed to go.

Sarah Low - Changing a stinky diaper mid treasure hunting...cramped in the front seat of the car.