Life Gave Us Lemons (7/27/11)

Jeff had the great idea to whip up AllRecipes.com's top rated freshly squeezed lemonade recipe. Believe it or not, it involved the stove:

And not so surprisingly, lots of lemons.

Which were easily squeezed thanks to this juicer Jeff bought at the beginning of our marriage that I thought was a little unnecessary. Looks like I was wrong.

Here's about the time Jeff told me there's a 40-year old man in Ogden whose day job is manning a lemonade stand.

And here's about when I told Jeff our lemonade looked so good we should be the ones with a lemonade stand.

Complete with lemon wedges. We were in paradise.

Seriously. The best. Lemonade. I've ever tasted. Blew Chick-Fil-A's out of the water.

Then we noticed we had a few strawberries. So Jeff started smashing and we experimented a little with our recipe. All variations were delicious.

Freshly squeezed lemonade, freshly popped popcorn, and a freshly rented movie were all brought to the basement to finish off the night.

Source Code. And beardy. And snuggling. It was perfect.

Sarah High - Putting the lemon wedges on the cups. It instantly turned the lemonade gourmet.
Sarah Low - I underestimated the amount of popcorn a half cup of kernels produces. My original bowl was way too small. I'd like to take this moment to request the storage container my dad calls his popcorn bowl to be my inheritance.

Jeff High - Finding and successfully making the best lemonade ever tasted by mankind.
Jeff Low - Source Code didn't live up to its hype.

A Minute of Your Time (8-21-11)

My date theme, "A Minute of Your Time," seemed appropriate for this week with Jeff's crazy work schedule. Luckily he ended up having a couple minutes to spare for our date night so we gathered some household materials for a few "Minute to Win It" games.

Here we are ready to lob some CDs at an unsuspecting watermelon.

I did not succeed.

Jeff put his game face on and then I knew he wasn't going easy on me with all these games. This is his high of the night. Sticking the two CDs just before the buzzer sounded.

Then we lined up cups of pennies from heaviest to lightest. Again, Jeff was a victor.

And I was not. I'm a little upset that after 17 years of school I'm only now seeing how unattractive my concentration face is. Good thing Jeff and I didn't have any classes together until after we were married.

Next up: Blow all the cards off a table except for the Kings.

At about this time I was ready to run to the computer to find out how to sign Jeff up for the game show. He did everything first try!

Yay! I finally got one!

Then we had to get a ping pong ball in each of those half plates. This game left us out of breath with no success to show for it.

It turns out it's kind of hard to laugh and blow a ping pong ball up a miniature ping pong ball mountain.

Then we balanced a few dice on a knife. Which was actually not that hard. Seeing as I did it.

Then we attempted the impossible task of rolling a quarter between the prongs of a fork. Attempted.

After that, Jeff managed to consecutively bounce five ping pong balls into a cup. I did not. (I love his crooked smile in this picture.)

Nor was I able to balance a plate and five blocks on my head.

But Jeff couldn't do that either.

We had a fun night all for the price of a few ping pong balls. And now I have a great idea for our next Cub Scouts Pack Meeting.

Jeff High - Watermelon Toss.
Jeff Low - The impossibleness of the quarter challenge.

Sarah High - Trying to blow the ping pong ball into the plates. For some reason that was hilarious to me at the time.
Sarah Low - My CDs are now covered in watermelon juice.

Rummikub (8-12-11)

With Jeff's exhausting work schedule these days, I told him not to stress too much about our date. After all, we basically hadn't seen each other in five days so spending an evening just staring at each other could have been romantic.

So our date evolved into a chill night. Which was just what we both needed.

We started with our favorite summer activity -- talking on our lawn chairs in the backyard while daydreaming about the renovations we'd like to do to our house.

Then we went inside for a few rousing games of Rummikub. It's no Sequence, but it's the best we have.

Deep in thought. Jeff always makes fun of me when I play Rummikub because at least once a game I'll announce, "Okay, now remember where everything is." Followed by me rearranging everything only to find myself one number short, leaving me with a tile still in my hand, and a mess of mismatched tiles on the board.

It was only somewhat obvious I had picked up the smiley after I discreetly took several pictures of my tiles from various angles with an excited grin on my face.

After Rummikub we watched an episode of Monk.

Sarah High - Singing "Red, Red Eleven you know what they say, Red, Red Eleven you'll make it some day," (if you can't tell, it's sung to a song from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolored Dream Coat) when we both needed a red eleven.

Sarah Low - We were going to go to a drive-in movie, but there wasn't a movie we wanted to see.

Jeff High - Watching Monk

Jeff Low - He didn't have very much time to plan the date.

Where a Kid Can Be a Kid (8-5-11)

Calling a visit to Chuck-E-Cheese with my family a date might be a little bit of a stretch, but we're going with it. We did kind of have a double date with Will and Diana walking around temple square the day after Chuck-E-Cheese, but I failed to document that excursion. So Chuck-E-Cheese it is.

Chuck-E-Cheese was often frequented by the Thomas family for each of our birthdays growing up. The fond memories of watching a giant, creepy mouse lurk among unsuspecting children always makes me jump at the opportunity to return to the big cheese.

We couldn't let the kids have all the fun. There were many competitions of skee ball, air hockey and football throw to be had. And I don't think I won any of them.

It doesn't matter how old you get, you still go running back to your dad with your hands cupped begging for more and more tokens.

It took us a while to find the jackpot ticket giver, but once we found it, Jeff and Ben got to work earning tickets for all the kids.

I wish we would have gotten a picture of the man who played the basketball game for two hours straight. I am fairly certain he and his wife count Chuck-E-Cheese as their date night every Friday night. Or a picture of the woman with hundreds of receipts from all the tickets she's won, meticulously adding her earnings on a calculator. I'm still left wondering what prize she's saving up for. There are some hard core Chuck-E-Cheesers out there.

Jeff High: Watching the basketball arcade game all-stars shoot hoops for two hours straight.

Jeff Low: The food.

Sarah High: All the kids went in front of the green screen to dance and be on TV. Eli was happy to be a part of the commotion and before long his little body was wiggling with the best of them. It was cute to watch him imitate the older kids.

Sarah Low: Also the food. But it's all part of the Chuck-E-Cheese experience.