Homemade Mini Golf (2-24-12)

Our date started at our most frequented restaurant -- Chuck-A-Rama. Jeff is starting to refuse to go anywhere else. And I don't mind finishing off a meal with all the ice-cream I could hope for.

Friday nights at Chuck-A-Rama are crazy! We braved the line and were shocked to see Eli was such a happy boy confined to our arms for the thirty minute wait. Then he kept himself happy by sitting like this for half the meal.

Jeff was a happy man. Did you know Chuck-A-Rama now serves Green Smoothies? Okay. Not really. But Eli loved that green slushie almost as much as he loves his Green Smoothies.

With stuffed stomaches we went home to continue our date there. (You know it's busy season when Jeff's beard comes to visit. He started growing it a few weeks early so it's already in full bloom.)

I am going to have a hard time paying for mini-golf ever again. We made our own mini-golf course and making the course was half the fun. We started with having a paper cup be the hole, but then we realized Eli's toy (in the left of this picture) had a perfect spot for us to hit the ball into and it was a much sturdier option.

Hole 2.

We got creative on hole 3 and constructed a ramp. This was our favorite hole and we played it twice. I got a hole-in-one the second time!

Hole 4. Complete with sand traps and bunkers.

Here's a blurry hole 5. We had a ramp going down and then a ramp going back up. Jeff got a hole-in-one on this one.

Jeff won by one point. Shucks.

Jeff High - Beating me at golf.

Jeff Low - After seeing a long line at Chuck-A-Rama, we drove around to find another place to eat, but then we ended up going to Chuck-A-Rama anyway and the line was way longer after we went back.

Sarah High - Getting a hole-in-one.

Sarah Low - My visiting teachers came over right before our date and brought me cookies. I ate about seven cookies before we went out to eat. Not the best idea especially when you're going to a buffet.

Malt Tasting (2-17-12)

We arrived to Cedar City last Friday in just enough time to make it over to Bulloch Drug's Soda Fountain before they closed. Jeff was dying to try a malt and the old-fashioned feel of Bulloch Drug was just the place to make his malt dreams come true.

I chose to forego a malt and stuck with the safe bet -- a shake. I worked at a little burger joint in high school where I made one too many pineapple malts to ever want to taste one of those nasty smelling things for myself.

Sure I felt weird asking the shake maker to take our picture, but look at the cute picture we would have missed out on if I would have chickened out.

Jeff liked his malt! It only confirmed my fears that he's turning into an old man right before my eyes.

We drove around Cedar City for a little bit afterwards to check out our old apartments and reminisce. It was a quick date so I opted out of high lows.

I'm Doughnuts for You (2-10-12)

Ignore my cheesy attempt to come up with a clever title for this post. Moving on.

Jeff and I love doughnuts. So much we do. And I've been wanting to try to homemake doughnuts for quite some time. What better time to try something new than with my husband on date night?!?

I made the dough right after we ate dinner so it could rise for an hour before our date officially started (a.k.a. Eli's bedtime).

Then we rolled the dough out and used this month's scouting theme -- resourcefulness -- to find some makeshift doughnut cutters. We came up with a cup and a baby bottle to make the perfect sized doughnut.

Bonus - when you homemake doughnuts, not only do you eliminate preservatives and gross things that could be in store-bought doughnuts, but you can bake them instead of fry them. This is especially nice to help with the guilt you might feel after eating say...9 doughnut holes and one doughnut in one sitting. But more about that later.

While our Krispy Kreme imitators were rising, we did a puzzle we got for Christmas while watching American Idol.

Sometimes my camera takes bad pictures and this is one of them:

Hello tasty treats.

The recipe recommended a cinnamon and sugar topping, but we glazed most of them. I cinnamon and sugared the doughnut holes after I used all the glaze and I wished we would have instead stuck with the cinnamon sugar for all. For some reason the cinnamon and sugar made it taste more doughnutty and less bready. Especially in tiny doughnut-hole size.

Mmmmmmm.

Sadly, this is as far as we got on our puzzle before I crumpled it back up and returned it to the box. 500-piece puzzles and toddlers are not ideal playmates.

Jeff High - Eating the doughnuts.
Jeff Low - We didn't get very far on the puzzle.

Is is possible for me to say eating 9 doughnut holes and one doughnut was the high and the low of my night? Okay, fine. I'll stick to the high/low rules.
Sarah High - I just love cooking things with Jeff. Which is probably why many of my dates involve the two of us in the kitchen.
Sarah Low - Jeff was sick. So I kind of felt like I was torturing him by making him endure a night of activities.

20 Questions (2-4-12)

When Jeff told me we'd be playing 20 questions for our date, I politely kept the thought, "I already know everything there is to know about you" to myself. I immediately imagined the struggle it would be to come up with unique questions for my husband of three years that I couldn't already answer or that I wouldn't normally ask in daily conversation. So if you're as skeptical about this date as I was... read on.

Our skepticism led us to only writing down 10 questions each but then we ended up both answering both lists of questions...

with our feet in the tub.

As I was coming up with questions, I remembered that coming up with uncommon questions was kind of my forte in the dating scene. I read this book once with a section about how people love to talk about themselves, so if you ask people questions about themselves, they'll like you because they'll enjoy their time talking about themselves and they'll associate that with you. Kind of like mind manipulation. And I found it unfailingly effective on my dates.

In fact, weird questions became my default in all social situations -- whether I was trying to manipulate someone into liking me or not. Like the time I was at a (fateful) bonfire with my roommate Leslie and we met this guy Cade. When the small talk died down, I asked Cade to describe himself in two words and I believe he chose something along the lines of "Rugged" and "Burley." See. You learn a lot about a person by asking weird questions. And I like to think it was my questioning of Cade that led him to Leslie's heart. You're welcome you two.

So anyway, I had forgotten about this hidden talent I have until I started scribbling questions. The more questions I thought of, the more I realized there was a lot I still had to learn about that suddenly mysterious man who lives with me.

And as that book I read says, people love to talk about themselves, so I had fun sharing my thoughts with Jeff and finding out what he didn't know about me.

Both of our children interrupted our date. One threw up and the other forced a slightly concerning amount of Braxton Hicks upon me once again. So with Eli's sheets in the wash and me lying on my left side downing water, we ended the night watching American Idol. 

Sarah High - One of my questions was, "What is one of your guilty pleasures that I don't know about?" We both answered and those answers were my favorite but we are choosing not to share these with the world so you'll just have to be left guessing.

Sarah Low - I wanted there to be more funny auditions on American Idol.

Jeff High - "Just talking to you was my high."

Jeff Low - I wrote four extra questions while I was waiting for Jeff to finish his ten (my talent can't be suppressed), and he felt bad I had more questions than him.