Re-disc-overing Our Love (6-22-12)

I am so excited to be back in the dating game! I wanted the first date after our break to be fun and summery and something we haven't done for a date night yet. What says summer more than having a pleasant dinner picnic in your backyard?

It was the perfect picnic menu. Light, refreshing and delicious. We have some robins who made a nest in our backyard, and they kept us company with their new baby chicks as we enjoyed our meal.

Don't let my cropping of Eli in the above pictures fool you. Our children did accompany us on this date. But we tried to ignore them as best we could.

By "ignoring" our children I really mean taking our date to a park with a huge field next to it so that Eli could slide to his heart's content and we could play a little frisbee golf. Yes I said frisbee golf. It's exactly what you're imagining. You hit a target with a frisbee. Lowest score wins.

Frisbee golf is one of Jeff's favorite activities. He and his friends have created a course looping around and through SUU's campus.

Eli made himself hard to ignore by being super adorable as he followed us around being our caddy.

See. Caddy cuteness.

It was fun to come up with what our "holes" should be. This one was one of my favorites. We had to hit that bench which ended up being tricky because you had to throw a perfectly straight throw to avoid hitting the trees. Needless to say, I hit a tree. I also kind of love this picture.

Here's another favorite hole. We had to throw it through the picnic table to hit the tree right behind it.

Check out my stance. I actually did a lot better than I expected myself to. My brother Abe had taught me a few frisbee moves before I went to college. My training definitely paid off.

Did I mention is was 100 degrees outside? It was pretty darn hot. We enjoyed cooling off with my favorite summer treat -- snow cones!

It was fun to spend an evening outside doing summery things and refreshing to re-disc-over our love post baby.

Sarah High - The park ended up being the greatest frisbee golf course and it was extra great because we had the whole park to ourselves.
Sarah Low - I kept spilling my snow cone on myself.

Jeff High - Eli being the caddy.
Jeff Low - How hot it was.

Baby Date (3-23-12)

Okay, okay. I know many a website that claims you shouldn't talk about your children while on a date with your spouse. It's a time to escape the everyday yada, yada. So for everyone who thinks even talk of the children should be forbidden from date night, you'll probably be appalled by my date this week.

Because when Jeff got home from work on Friday I said, "Our date night is going to be Operation: Get Ready for Baby!" To which Jeff said, "Oh great. So basically you have a list of things you want me to do and you're calling that our date?"

He knows me too well. Although, I did remove installing the car seat and assembling the stroller from the night's activities to try to keep it more date-ish and less to-do-ish. My idea evolved to going to Wal-Mart to pick up snacks for the hospital and then come home to look through family names and try to finalize a name for baby. Fun, right? I thought you'd agree.

This is our hospital survival kit. The Goldfish and Fruit Snacks are Eli's special treats for the week of new baby, the bottles are obviously for #2 (Jeff refuses to use any other kind of bottle), and we plan to survive off Gatorade and candy.

When I was pregnant with Eli I bought a Gatorade as a part of my hospital bag. I don't buy Gatorade often, so it's a real treat when I finally get my hands on some. I resisted the many "cravings" I had for it leading up to Eli's birth, and then after I had Eli it was such a treat to feel like I finally deserved my Gatorade.

I'm hoping that bottle of Gatorade gets me through all the pushing this time around, too. If not the Gatorade, then the Sour Watermelons should help.

Then we looked through Jeff's family tree to help us decide on a name. We think we have one. But we've been very wishy-washy so things could change.

Here I am at almost 37 weeks pregnant.

I feel much more prepared for the baby now that we have a tentative name and our hospital bags nearly ready to go. Now I just need to figure out a way to get Jeff to get the car seat installed...

Bountiful Excursion (3-10-12)

We have a few recurring themes going on here. But hey, we do what we love when we go on dates together and boy do we love Chuck-A-Rama!

We went to the temple and then my parents took us to Jeff's favorite restaurant for his belated birthday dinner. The whole way down to Bountiful Jeff was telling me random bits of information he's learned about Chuck-A-Rama in the last few months. He knows the weekly menu, how to pay lunch price and get the dinner menu, and all sorts of insider information. It was adorable.

And I wonder why my face looks rounder and rounder with every picture that's taken of me...

After Chuck-A-Rama we went to our other favorite place -- Costco! Then we went home and I fell asleep at roughly 9:00. If there's two things a pregnant lady needs, it's food and sleep!

Jeff High - Going to the temple.
Jeff Low - Chuck-A-Rama and Costco were super crowded and crazy.

Sarah High - Listening to Jeff declare his love for Chuck-A-Rama on the way to Bountiful.
Sarah Low - Being too tired to function after 8:30.

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.

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.