An $8 date

We've made it a priority in our marriage to have a date every week. This may sound expensive, but our dates are rarely the traditional dinner and a movie type dates. In fact, the one time we did eat out and see a movie the same day, it was lunch and a matinée. 

 For our most recent date, we took a long walk downtown.

 We walked along the canal...

 watched the local animals...

had fun taking photos...

 

 watched part of a free concert that happened to be going on...

and saw parts of the city we'd never seen before, like the central library.

(It's pretty epic.)

And we just had fun.

We bought some sorbet at the mall, which was our only expense other than the unavoidable parking costs. 

 

It was one of the best dates we've had in a while!

Enjoying Fall

Not too hot...not too cold...beautiful colors. It's a great time of year for having fun outside. 

 You can conquer a corn maze

Hug a tree

Cuddle together for warmth

Build a house

Dine al fresco

Pick the perfect pumpkin

And most of all, just escape from the city and enjoy the SPACE. As much as I love where I live now, the city can be a little suffocating after growing up with cows for neighbors.

What are you enjoying this fall?


Shared at Things I Love Thursday and Finer Things Friday.

Our First Farmers Market Trip

I'd been meaning to check out the local farmers market since it opened a couple months ago, but I had never managed to make it there. I usually don't go grocery shopping until at least 11:00 on Saturdays, and the market is only open until 11:30. 

What finally motivated me to get out of bed and go? Corn. Corn is one of the five vegetables Nathan will eat, and he's very picky about the kind of corn. All my attempts at serving him good corn had failed, and locally grown corn was my last hope. I also wanted to find some tomatoes, green beans, and red potatoes.

Now that we've had our first experience, I can't believe we waited this long to go. I found everything I'd hoped to find and even threw in a beet as well. The corn was really, really good.

I boiled the red potatoes and green beans and served them over pasta, loosely following this recipe. I think my potato to pasta ratio was a little off since the potatoes I used were so big, but it was pretty tasty.

The most amazing find for me was this lovely little thing. I have always hated beets. Or so I thought. It turns out I just hate canned beets.

After 35 minutes at 400 degrees and some olive oil, it's a completely different story. I was shocked. The taste reminded me a little of sweet potato fries, which I love. That beet pretty much changed my life.

I cut the corn from our last cob and tossed it with chopped tomato and avocado. Too bad we don't have any locally grown avocados!

  

We will definitely be returning to the farmers market. The food might be a little pricey, but if it's 20 times better than the produce you can buy in the grocery store, not to mention chemical free, I think it's worth it.

Do you shop farmers markets?

More Try New Adventures Thursday at Alicia's Homemaking

More Finer Things Friday at Amy's Finer Things

Nathan's Wedding Gift

A year ago, when we were planning our wedding, Nathan got the idea that instead of having a limo pick us up from the wedding reception, we should have a helicopter. He wanted this to be a surprise for me, but once he decided it would probably be a little too expensive, he told me about his idea. 

Not long after he told me this, there just so happened to be a Groupon for an introductory helicopter flight lesson. Up until that point, I wasn't sure whether or not to buy Nathan a wedding gift. Sure the sales ladies at Jared insisted that I had to buy him a watch since "It's tradition!" but Nathan was happy with the Walmart digital watch he had. 

Flying a helicopter on the other hand? That's something he could enjoy. So, although we left the wedding reception in our own car, later that night I told Nathan that he would get to fly a helicopter. I really thought he would have his lesson last summer, but somehow we just never got around to it. Finally, two weeks before the Groupon expired, Nathan flew a helicopter!

First, the flight instructor showed him and another student all the controls. The two other students there that morning were also using Groupons, so Nathan wasn't the only one to wait until the last minute.

Then he went inside the tent classroom for his ground training.

...while I sat and watched the birds. The metropolitan airport is probably one of the quietest places in the city when there are no helicopters or planes taking off - just the sounds of red-winged blackbirds, mockingbirds, and killdeer.

And then it was Nathan's turn to fly!

A few more instructions

A little bit of hovering

And he was off!

I wish I could have seen the view he had of the city up there. He even flew over our apartment and saw my car on the ground.

Still smiling after his flight 

 Yep, I'd say it was a lot more fun than a fancy watch!

Linked at Try New Adventures Thursday at Alicia's Homemaking.

10 Things I Learned on Our Florida Trip

 

Nathan and I took a trip to Pensacola, Florida, last month. Nathan graduated from Pensacola Christian College, and he was excited to finally be able to show me where he spent five years of his life. With one day of driving, three days there, and another day driving back, it was somewhat exhausting, but it was nice to be able to relax a little. Here are 10 things I learned on our first post-honeymoon trip together.

 

1. Pensacola Christian College feels very little like Ball State University.

I was aware that Nathan and I attended very different colleges, but being at PCC in person gave me a better picture of those differences. Although I had no problem putting on a skirt to comply with the PCC dress code, it felt kind of unnatural since I wore jeans 90% of the time I was in college. "I feel like we're going to church!" I told Nathan as I got in the car. Really, we kind of were; we attended chapel along with all of the students Friday morning. And, even as a married man, Nathan felt a little uncomfortable when his wife kissed him on a campus where even hand holding is forbidden.

2. Nathan and I can spend 13 hours in the car without getting mad at each other.

This was good to know. I wouldn't say we enjoyed every minute of our ridiculously long trip, but I couldn't have asked for better company.

3. Nathan was a very memorable student.

Five years after graduating, his professors still remembered him. I've only been out of college two years, and I doubt very many of my professors would remember my name.

4. Alabama dirt is RED.

This photo doesn't begin to do it justice. When Nathan told me about the red dirt, I was expecting it to look like the clay tennis courts at the French Open. But some of it was a bright red, almost like the radioactive Fiesta Ware.

5. Florida isn't always warm.

Okay, I kind of knew that before, but it still surprised me how cold it was at the beach. Even though there were still plenty of girls in bikinis, I kept my coat on part of the time.


 

6. Bar soap is BAD for my wedding ring.

Normally I don't have a problem using motel soap for a few days, but now that I know what it does to my wedding band, I may have to bring liquid soap the next time we go on vacation. The soap was caked in behind the diamonds of my ring, and even a cleaning at Jared didn't get it out. (Once I brought it to the attention of the sales associate, she said she had some tricks up her sleeve and was able to get it out.)
  

7. Nathan is a driving beast.

He drove two-thirds of the way to Florida and two-thirds of the way home. I even had coffee on the way back to try to wake myself up to drive again, but all he needed was a four hour break in the middle.

8. Alabama has some crazy roadkill.

In addition to the aforementioned armadillos, I saw a few coyotes and some animals I couldn't identify...mink? Weasel? Dingo?

 

9. Groupons aren't always amazing deals.

I signed up to receive the daily Groupon emails for Pensacola a few months before our trip, and I bought a Groupon for Surf Burger, a restaurant on Pensacola Beach. It was a really good lunch with a fabulous view, but with all the gas we burned up driving around for 30 minutes to find parking, it wasn't as great of a deal as I had hoped.

10. I still hate grits. 

It's been at least 15 years since I last tried grits, so I kept an open mind. I just don't like them, and I don't know why. However, fried okra is quite tasty.

The Armadillo Song

Things have been a little busy lately. Nathan and I took a trip to Pensacola, Florida, for a few days so he could show me where he went to college. Once I get the apartment back in order, I should be able to return to my irregularly scheduled blog. In the meantime, here's a song I wrote inspired by Alabama roadkill.




The Armadillo Song
Armadillo!
Friend of Tom Bombadillo
Dances 'round laughing at Old Man Willow

Armadillo!
The wind did billow
And then armadillo went rolling down the hill-o

Armadillo!
Didn't make a good pillow
Tried to run across the road and got himself kill-o

What can I say? 14 hours in a car messes with your head.


Photo source

Fondue Date Night

Nathan and I try to have a date night one night each week, usually on Saturdays. Sometimes we'll go out to eat or do something like bowling, but often we just have fun at home. The main point is to spend that time focused on the other person and enjoy each other's company. With so much of Nathan's time devoted to classes, we aren't able to spend a whole lot of quality time together during the week (although living together in itself is still pretty awesome).

For our most recent date night, we used our fondue pot for the first time. I'd only had fondue once previously (with my friend Carly, who gave us our fondue pot for our wedding), and it was a new experience for Nathan.

This was the spread we had had for our first fondue feast.

I made the cheese fondue based on this recipe, but I decided it had too much garlic. This led to several more additions, and I think we ended up with four different kinds of cheese. Amazingly, it was still good. I guess you can't go wrong with cheese.

We had cauliflower, Granny Smith apples, French bread, and summer sausage. I had read that Granny Smith apples were really good with cheese fondue, but I thought they were just okay. Nathan didn't even try one. 

Nathan had the idea to boil red potatoes and eggs to dip in the fondue. The eggs kind of fell apart and had to be fished out, but the red potatoes were excellent.

 Taking the first dip

 

Nenya got in on the action too.

I had originally planned this as a fondue and game night, but we ended up spending so much time preparing everything that Nathan had to get back to reading by the time we were finished eating. We still had lots of fun just with the fondue, and we're looking forward to trying chocolate next time!

Birthday Surprises

I don't really have a great track record for having amazing birthdays. Don't get me wrong, it's always a special day, but things have a tendency to go wrong. For my eighth birthday party, we went to Noble Romans, and all the kids got to go back in the kitchen to put the toppings on our own personal pan pizza. This sounds like great fun, and it was, until the waitress came out with our pizzas and dropped mine on the floor. I got to make another one, but I had to sit and watch everyone else eat while my pizza baked, seemingly an eternity to an eight year old. Then there was my twelfth birthday, when we were snowed in and couldn't have my party until weeks later. All we wanted to do for my birthday last year was eat at Bob Evans, but the Bob Evans we tried to go to either had gone out of business or had never actually existed (stupid Google Maps).

So this year, when I told Nathan that I wanted to have a "surprise evening" and let him plan everything, I didn't really have a lot of expectations, but he did a really good job. When I was almost home from work yesterday, Nathan called me to see if I was home. He didn't want me to go inside until he got there so he could see my reaction.

This is what he had done during his lunch break:

Balloons, pink stargazer lilies, and party blowers!

He had opened up the cards I got in the mail and laid them out too.

And then I unwrapped my crazy gift from Nathan:

A new camera!

I actually wanted a new camera, but one much cheaper than this one! I just wanted an inexpensive camera somewhere in between the camera on my phone and Nathan's huge SLR, but Nathan isn't so good at buying inexpensive cameras. I love it, of course; I'm just not sure that giving an expensive camera to someone who lost one camera and dropped another is such a good idea. 

This is the first picture I took with it. I love my husband, even though he spent way too much money on me.

A better look at my lilies

I didn't know where we were going for dinner. When we got in the car, Nathan informed me that I had to cover my eyes. I could tell he went south and then north again, and then we went in circles. It turns out the circling was just trying to find a parking space. After all that, we ended up at Granite City. We'd never been there, and I thought it looked pretty good.

I ordered the Tuscan shrimp. The dishes I order when we go out to eat are usually things I would never make at home because Nathan wouldn't like them. I think the only thing in this Nathan would eat is the noodles. I really liked it though.

The meat and potatoes man had pork chops and double mashed potatoes.

It was probably one of the best birthdays I'd had, and definitely the best I've had with Nathan.