Shake Things Up (8-3-12)

Dating cards have become half the fun of date night for me. I love coming up with a little saying and seeing Jeff try to figure out what we're doing.

I don't think he guessed that we'd be making homemade ice-cream for our date this week. I was reminded of how to make ice-cream in a bag on Pinterest, so I got the ingredients and made a date out of it.

It was really simple. Only three ingredients, a little ice and salt and you're ready to start shaking.

Caution: Date may cause frostbite. Take precautionary measures.

Hello beautifuls.

So tasty. So perfect. So delicious. So refreshing on a hot summer's eve.

We enjoyed our snack on the front porch mmmmm-ing all the way. It was so good. So good that we made another batch for lunch the next day.

In an effort to stick with the shaking theme, I suggested we could play Yahtzee, but we were feeling lazy and opted to get a RedBox instead. It was a good choice. I fell asleep 20 minutes into it and definitely needed the extra sleep after our first week of Jeff's busy season.

Sarah High - Talking on the front porch.
Sarah Low - Getting bug bites on the front porch.

Jeff High - How good the ice-cream tasted.
Jeff Low - He thought the movie was dumb. (Mirror, Mirror) But yet he stayed up to watch the whole thing basically by himself. Something tells me he liked it a little more than he wants me to believe...

Drawn to You (7-20-12)

Nothing says "It's Friday!" quite like a hot, homemade pizza to kick off date night. We've been trying to perfect the art of pizza in our house. This beauty was by far our best yet.

With the kids in bed, we took our date to the sidewalk to do some chalk art and discover we are not artists.

We played a game I used to play with my siblings in church. I couldn't remember the exact rules so this is how we played: You start with a scribble. Then you have to take turns turning the scribble into a picture. When you pick up your writing utensil your turn is over. If you can't add to the picture you lose.

Once we started playing, it became obvious that there were some loopholes in the rules but we forged ahead anyway. I started trying to turn our scribble into a Teepee...

While Jeff was turning it into an airplane.

I liked his idea better so I went along with his picture.

Jeff has more of an artistic eye than I do.

I discovered my lack of artistry when I attempted to draw a bird. You know. That thing right in front of the pilot. Yes. I'm blushing at the thought of anyone seeing my lack of chalk talent.

After remembering why I hated all my art classes in high school, we did our second favorite summer activity -- laying on the trampoline and chatting and getting eaten alive by mosquitos. That last part isn't our favorite, but a few bug bites are worth a good starlit discussion.

What you may not know is that for every picture you see on my blog, there are about 20 pictures that look almost exactly the same that didn't quite make the cut. Sometimes my excessive picture taking drives Jeff a little crazy which results in a few of these:

It was a short date since we were both tired from a day of potty training Eli so we chose to forego high lows. Our quick date made me realize it's still important to make time for each other even if we're feeling tired or busy. Just one hour of time away from distractions to spend with each other can make all the difference in reconnecting each week so I'm grateful Jeff's willing to make date night a priority even on the weeks that are a bit crazy.

I guess that's why I'm drawn to him. That and the fact that he's so photogenic of course.

Let's Tie the Knot (7-6-12)

When I saw we had a wedding present that's been sitting in its wrapping for the past four years, I knew the time had finally come to put it to use.

 All I can say is, "Why the heck did we not crack that baby open sooner?!?"

First we spun the spinner and wrote down all of our spins so that we wouldn't have to deal with trying to spin mid game. It worked like a charm.

Thank you self timer for helping us capture our date nights. What self timer didn't capture was Jeff's Twister strategy. He made sure I didn't have a lot of options and he got me in a garbled mess every game. I never knew he was such a skilled Twisterian. The things you learn from date night.

I forgot to mention that we had made some pretzel dough that was rising during our game of Twister. After we were twisted out, we hit the kitchen to continue our knotty date... (I couldn't help it.)

I need to take a moment to thank Mel for yet another delicious recipe. That girl is an inspiration.

You have to dip the molded pretzels into a baking soda/water mixture. Our mixture didn't stay mixed very well, so Jeff got the brilliant idea to put the lid on the tupperware we were using to give it a good shake. Surely that would get everything nice and mixed, right?

Nope. Somehow his shaking managed to further assist the baking soda in separating from the water. Sometimes dating your spouse leads to unintended science experiments.

Here are our bronzed beauties. They. Were. Scrumptious. I ate somewhere between 2-6 for breakfast this morning.

Jeff High - Knocking me over in Twister.
Jeff Low - He put too much salt on his pretzels.

Sarah High - This conversation:
Sarah, "Jeff, thanks for being such a good sport in putting up with these dates."
Jeff, "What do you mean, 'putting up with the dates?' I love our date nights. I'm not putting up with anything."  He's cute.
Sarah Low - I was sick. Boo.

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.

Date Card!

Look what just magically arrived on our doorstep:

Straight from Chris Harrison.

Fine. I wrote it without the help of Chris or any TV producers. Even though we won't have a camera crew videoing our date tomorrow, I promise to provide plenty of photographic footage.

Excelladaters has finally returned after our three-month-we-had-an-adorable-baby-so-give-us-a-break hiatus.

Stay tuned.

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.