This week I had planned what I thought would be a pretty fun date for the hubby, the little guy and I. However, when my husband reminded me mid-week that he would be participating in some controlled burning (he's a volunteer firefighter/EMT) that day, I realized he may be too tired for what I had planned, so I decided to scale it back a little. Then the night before date night I had dinner with a friend and she offered to babysit the munchkin so we could have a night out without the bambino. So I changed my plans again. Then, just before we left, I came up with yet another plan.
So we dropped the kiddo off with my friend and headed to Outback Steakhouse. This is one of my husband's favorite restaurants, and he hadn't been in quite some time, so I thought he'd really enjoy it, and we did. We had a pretty great dinner and it was nice to be able to eat and talk without having to tend to the baby. John had his favorite, prime rib - Outback style, and I had a small filet (which I noticed when reading the menu had gotten even smaller since the last time we'd eaten there) and we also split an order of the coconut shrimp. It was way too much food and John ended up having some of it for breakfast the next morning.
When we were done with dinner we went to Best Buy. There were some things John had been wanting to look for, and he had a gift card from Christmas to spend, so we wandered the store looking at giant TVs and digital cameras and smart phones and laptops and so on and so forth, picked up a few small things, and decided to call it a night.
Dinner was around $50 with tax and tip.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
Week 9 - The Deja Vu Date
This week we revisited our former standard date night. It was bound to happen sooner or later. It was John's turn to plan, but in his defense I was the one who suggested it. You see, I had recently been having a serious hankering for China Road, and we still live in a 110+ year old house that still needs things from the hardware store all the time. So we slipped easily back into our old ways for one night.
We started our dinner, as always, with an order of crab rangoon. These have been a favorite food of mine since the first time I had them, but I've never eaten them anywhere that come close to as good as China Road's. For dinner, favorite dish at CR is the kung pao beef, but I'm still nursing and Corbin isn't a big fan, so I went for my second favorite - cashew chicken, extra mushrooms. John had the chef's sizzling hot plate. As usual the food did not disappoint, the service was wonderful, and since we had the little guy with us several of the servers stopped to see him and catch up with us. I love this challenge and the places we've been going, but I sure do miss having CR more often.
After dinner we headed to Lowe's. As I've said before, our house is over 110 years old. In that time it has been subjected to several additions and some really shoddy renovations, so something always needs fixed. This trip was to price the cost of some ceiling fan replacement parts. The fan in our bedroom is circa 1980. Some time ago one of the blades broke off. This left it unbalanced and therefore unusable, so as a quick fix John broke off the opposite one. A two blade fan wasn't as effective as a four blade fan, but at least it was a fan. Then a third blade broke off. John found it impossible to sleep without the fan going, so in desperation he took a blade off the dining room fan and put it on the bedroom fan. So now the bedroom fan half worked and the dining room fan didn't work at all (unless we were to take another blade off it). It was really quite a sad situation. During one of her visits my dear Mother-in-law took one look at the pathetic fan hanging in our bedroom and took us to the store for a new one. Since we were planning on replacing the hideous paneling on the bedroom ceiling with drywall, we decided to wait to install the new fan until the drywall project was done. Well, it's been some time now, and the old bedroom fan is still there, half working, and the dining room fan is still short a blade. With the warmer weather approaching I'd like to get all of the fans in good working order, so we found ourselves looking at blades and blade arms in the fan and lighting aisle at Lowe's. We decided to just go ahead and install the new fan. Hopefully we will be able to get that done in the near future. I'm sure this is more information than you ever wanted to know about the ceiling fan situation in our house, but I just thought you should know how desperate we were when we spent yet another date night at the home improvement store.
Again, I've lost track of the total cost for dinner, but it was somewhere around $40 including tax and tip - and we have a tendency to tip a little more excessively at CR.
We started our dinner, as always, with an order of crab rangoon. These have been a favorite food of mine since the first time I had them, but I've never eaten them anywhere that come close to as good as China Road's. For dinner, favorite dish at CR is the kung pao beef, but I'm still nursing and Corbin isn't a big fan, so I went for my second favorite - cashew chicken, extra mushrooms. John had the chef's sizzling hot plate. As usual the food did not disappoint, the service was wonderful, and since we had the little guy with us several of the servers stopped to see him and catch up with us. I love this challenge and the places we've been going, but I sure do miss having CR more often.
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| Cashew Chicken, extra mushrooms |
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| Chef's Sizzling Hot Plate |
After dinner we headed to Lowe's. As I've said before, our house is over 110 years old. In that time it has been subjected to several additions and some really shoddy renovations, so something always needs fixed. This trip was to price the cost of some ceiling fan replacement parts. The fan in our bedroom is circa 1980. Some time ago one of the blades broke off. This left it unbalanced and therefore unusable, so as a quick fix John broke off the opposite one. A two blade fan wasn't as effective as a four blade fan, but at least it was a fan. Then a third blade broke off. John found it impossible to sleep without the fan going, so in desperation he took a blade off the dining room fan and put it on the bedroom fan. So now the bedroom fan half worked and the dining room fan didn't work at all (unless we were to take another blade off it). It was really quite a sad situation. During one of her visits my dear Mother-in-law took one look at the pathetic fan hanging in our bedroom and took us to the store for a new one. Since we were planning on replacing the hideous paneling on the bedroom ceiling with drywall, we decided to wait to install the new fan until the drywall project was done. Well, it's been some time now, and the old bedroom fan is still there, half working, and the dining room fan is still short a blade. With the warmer weather approaching I'd like to get all of the fans in good working order, so we found ourselves looking at blades and blade arms in the fan and lighting aisle at Lowe's. We decided to just go ahead and install the new fan. Hopefully we will be able to get that done in the near future. I'm sure this is more information than you ever wanted to know about the ceiling fan situation in our house, but I just thought you should know how desperate we were when we spent yet another date night at the home improvement store.
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| The 2-bladed bedroom ceiling fan. |
Week 8 - Triple Date
This week John, Corbin and I invited our friends Jarrod, Jen and their daughter Kinley to meet us at Round The Bend Steakhouse for dinner. They live in Lincoln so we thought it would make a great halfway meeting point. I have joked since before they were born that Corbin and Kinley will have an arranged marriage, allowing her parents and us to skip the whole dating thing, so this was their official first date.
John had a prime rib dinner - one of their specialties, the other being various animals' testicles - and I had a steak and shrimp dinner. Both meals came with a salad, a potato (we both had baked) and dinner rolls. The food was good, not great, but good. For the price we could have gone somewhere else and had much better, but the company made it more than worth it.
We had a wonderful time catching up with our friends and the babies were both well behaved, so all in all I'd call it a pretty successful night.
Unfortunately I haven't been able to keep my posts up to date as often as I had hoped, and now since it's been so long I don't remember the exact total, but including tax and tip it was somewhere between $40 and $50.
John had a prime rib dinner - one of their specialties, the other being various animals' testicles - and I had a steak and shrimp dinner. Both meals came with a salad, a potato (we both had baked) and dinner rolls. The food was good, not great, but good. For the price we could have gone somewhere else and had much better, but the company made it more than worth it.
We had a wonderful time catching up with our friends and the babies were both well behaved, so all in all I'd call it a pretty successful night.
Unfortunately I haven't been able to keep my posts up to date as often as I had hoped, and now since it's been so long I don't remember the exact total, but including tax and tip it was somewhere between $40 and $50.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Week 7 - "That there Clark is an RV"
This weekend was the annual Omaha Boat, Sports and Travel show. We've enjoyed going to this the last few years and really enjoy looking at all of the RVs. We were, for a short time, proud owners of a mid-80's motor home, but we decided it was a little more than what we needed or wanted, so we sold it. Since then we have talked on and off about buying a smaller bumper-hitch trailer, but until we get serious about it we love to go look at all of the various options available.
So early that afternoon we headed down to the Qwest Center to see what this year's offerings were. We decided to keep the bambino with us, so I strapped him into the Snuggli facing out so he could see the campers too. It was pretty cold out that day and very drafty in the Qwest, so I left his raccoon hat on. Apparently people can't resist a dimpled baby with a raccoon hat, so we chatted with lots of strangers that afternoon. We even had one of the camper salesmen ask if he could take a picture of him. My husband, always the haggler, allowed the guy to snap a picture of the baby in return for a business card and promise of a great price when we're ready to buy. It was an enjoyable afternoon and we got more ideas for what we are going to be looking for when we ever decide to take the plunge.
After we had checked out the RVs, gone back and double checked the ones we had liked, and wandered through the rest of the show's offerings we'd built up quite the appetite. Hubby hadn't made any particular dinner plans as part of the date (it was his turn to plan), so we picked something on the fly. We ended up choosing Wheatfields where John got his favorite french dip and I gave the house special fried chicken a try. Everything was yummy but I had to get a to-go box for most of my meal so I could save room for dessert. After bread pudding and strawberry wedding cake (most of which also came home in a to-go box), we were ready to call it a night.
Parking $8
Show Tickets $18
Lemonade $3
Dinner $43
Total $72
Previous balance $122 - $50 weekly - $72 = $150 current balance
So early that afternoon we headed down to the Qwest Center to see what this year's offerings were. We decided to keep the bambino with us, so I strapped him into the Snuggli facing out so he could see the campers too. It was pretty cold out that day and very drafty in the Qwest, so I left his raccoon hat on. Apparently people can't resist a dimpled baby with a raccoon hat, so we chatted with lots of strangers that afternoon. We even had one of the camper salesmen ask if he could take a picture of him. My husband, always the haggler, allowed the guy to snap a picture of the baby in return for a business card and promise of a great price when we're ready to buy. It was an enjoyable afternoon and we got more ideas for what we are going to be looking for when we ever decide to take the plunge.
After we had checked out the RVs, gone back and double checked the ones we had liked, and wandered through the rest of the show's offerings we'd built up quite the appetite. Hubby hadn't made any particular dinner plans as part of the date (it was his turn to plan), so we picked something on the fly. We ended up choosing Wheatfields where John got his favorite french dip and I gave the house special fried chicken a try. Everything was yummy but I had to get a to-go box for most of my meal so I could save room for dessert. After bread pudding and strawberry wedding cake (most of which also came home in a to-go box), we were ready to call it a night.
Parking $8
Show Tickets $18
Lemonade $3
Dinner $43
Total $72
Previous balance $122 - $50 weekly - $72 = $150 current balance
Week 6 - "Free Hockey"
This week was supposed to be another try at the date we both planned, but late in the week my best friend Steph called and asked if we'd like tickets to the Omaha Lancers v. Lincoln Stars hockey game. She also mentioned that there would be $1 beer, soda and hot dogs before the game and that she even had a babysitter (her mom) lined up for the little guy. How could we say no?
So we dropped the little man off with his "Aunt Donita" and headed up to the Omaha civic center. Dinner consisted of pre-game hot dogs and beer - which is a rare treat for me since I'm still nursing. We enjoyed the game (or at least what we saw of it), but were disappointed that the refs broke up all the fights before they had a chance to get good. We also enjoyed catching up with friends and people watching. Unfortunately, with the little amount of sleep we've been getting lately, we couldn't make it to the end of the game. We left after the second period and headed home.
It was a fun night, relatively cheap, though not as cheap as it could have been, and it was nice to be able to enjoy a couple beers in the company of good friends.
Parking: $6
4 beers: $4
4 Hot dogs: $4
Pretzel, water
& soda $12
tips $2
Total: $32
Previous balance: $104 + $50 weekly - $32 = $122 current balance
So we dropped the little man off with his "Aunt Donita" and headed up to the Omaha civic center. Dinner consisted of pre-game hot dogs and beer - which is a rare treat for me since I'm still nursing. We enjoyed the game (or at least what we saw of it), but were disappointed that the refs broke up all the fights before they had a chance to get good. We also enjoyed catching up with friends and people watching. Unfortunately, with the little amount of sleep we've been getting lately, we couldn't make it to the end of the game. We left after the second period and headed home.
It was a fun night, relatively cheap, though not as cheap as it could have been, and it was nice to be able to enjoy a couple beers in the company of good friends.
Parking: $6
4 beers: $4
4 Hot dogs: $4
Pretzel, water
& soda $12
tips $2
Total: $32
Previous balance: $104 + $50 weekly - $32 = $122 current balance
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| Enjoying the game! |
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Week 5 - The Date That Broke the Bank
This week was John's turn to plan. On Monday we met for lunch and he told me what his plan was. I immediately started laughing because it was exactly what I had planned for my next turn. When he asked why I was laughing and I told him, he decided to let me have it and plan something else. I'll let you know what it was when we actually get to do it. So that left him to come up with something else for us to do. It was Valentine's weekend, so he decided that dinner would probably be a long wait or hassle and decided on a lunch/afternoon date.
Our date started at the Apple Store. John had been thinking about getting a Mac laptop for some time and wanted to go check them out. He also thought I might enjoy having an iPad and wanted me to try one out for size. I won't bore you with all of the gory details, but let's just say that a MacBook Air, an iPad and a few accessories later, Mr. Visa was moaning our names in ecstacy.
By then it was late afternoon and we were pretty hungry so we headed to Sam & Louie's Pizza in Gretna. We had planned on using a Living Social $20 for $10 that I had purchased, but when we got there we found out they were having an anniversary special - 1/2 price on all pizza and draft beer - but you couldn't combine with the discount certificate. We decided to take advantage of the special and save the certificate for another visit. The pizza was delicious - I got a small veggie and John got the Manhantan with alfredo, meatballs and Canadian bacon. The service, on the other hand, left a lot to be desired.
After fueling up for more shopping we headed to the outlet stores. I was in the market for some new jeans, which I found and got an amazing deal on at the Van Heusen store. We also got a few items at Osh Kosh and Carter's for the little guy, including some swim trunks for his swimming lessons that start next month. Then it was home for family nap time. We are so wild and crazy!
Although this was another riff on our standard dinner/shopping date, it was, at least, different shopping.
Date night fund: $84 + $50 weekly contribution - $30 for pizza = $104 current balance
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| Veggie Pizza |
 |
| Manhattan Pizza |
Our date started at the Apple Store. John had been thinking about getting a Mac laptop for some time and wanted to go check them out. He also thought I might enjoy having an iPad and wanted me to try one out for size. I won't bore you with all of the gory details, but let's just say that a MacBook Air, an iPad and a few accessories later, Mr. Visa was moaning our names in ecstacy.
By then it was late afternoon and we were pretty hungry so we headed to Sam & Louie's Pizza in Gretna. We had planned on using a Living Social $20 for $10 that I had purchased, but when we got there we found out they were having an anniversary special - 1/2 price on all pizza and draft beer - but you couldn't combine with the discount certificate. We decided to take advantage of the special and save the certificate for another visit. The pizza was delicious - I got a small veggie and John got the Manhantan with alfredo, meatballs and Canadian bacon. The service, on the other hand, left a lot to be desired.
After fueling up for more shopping we headed to the outlet stores. I was in the market for some new jeans, which I found and got an amazing deal on at the Van Heusen store. We also got a few items at Osh Kosh and Carter's for the little guy, including some swim trunks for his swimming lessons that start next month. Then it was home for family nap time. We are so wild and crazy!
Although this was another riff on our standard dinner/shopping date, it was, at least, different shopping.
Date night fund: $84 + $50 weekly contribution - $30 for pizza = $104 current balance
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Week 4 - Who has time to date?
John, Corbin and I did some traveling this past weekend, so there was no official "date". He's a quick recap of our weekend:
Friday afternoon we loaded up the car, picked up the little guy from daycare and headed south. We were headed for John's mom's house in Fulton, MO. It is normally about a 5 hour drive from our house and this was Corbin's longest car trip so far. It took us a little longer than usual, but Corbin was a trooper and did awesome. We stopped a little over half way there at a random Wal-mart, got him out of the carseat (and into dry pants) for awhile, but other than that he snoozed or played quietly with his toys the whole way.
While in Fulton we got to spend time with John's mom, sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew. We also went to O'Fallon, MO on Saturday to attend the 3rd birthday party of a cool little man who happens to belong to some great friends of ours. It was a great time and we got to catch up with some of our St. Louis friends.
Saturday night we had dinner at a restaurant called "Stephanina's" in Wentzville, MO with John's family. Since we weren't going to be able to squeeze a date in, we decided to pay for our dinner from our date night fund. It's still John's turn to plan the next one, and I look forward to seeing what he's come up with.
Date night fund:
previous balance $ 81.00
weekly contribution 50.00
Saturday dinner - 31.00
GC purchases - 16.00 (groupon, etc. deals for future dates)
Balance 84.00
Friday afternoon we loaded up the car, picked up the little guy from daycare and headed south. We were headed for John's mom's house in Fulton, MO. It is normally about a 5 hour drive from our house and this was Corbin's longest car trip so far. It took us a little longer than usual, but Corbin was a trooper and did awesome. We stopped a little over half way there at a random Wal-mart, got him out of the carseat (and into dry pants) for awhile, but other than that he snoozed or played quietly with his toys the whole way.
While in Fulton we got to spend time with John's mom, sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew. We also went to O'Fallon, MO on Saturday to attend the 3rd birthday party of a cool little man who happens to belong to some great friends of ours. It was a great time and we got to catch up with some of our St. Louis friends.
Saturday night we had dinner at a restaurant called "Stephanina's" in Wentzville, MO with John's family. Since we weren't going to be able to squeeze a date in, we decided to pay for our dinner from our date night fund. It's still John's turn to plan the next one, and I look forward to seeing what he's come up with.
Date night fund:
previous balance $ 81.00
weekly contribution 50.00
Saturday dinner - 31.00
GC purchases - 16.00 (groupon, etc. deals for future dates)
Balance 84.00
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| Corbin and Cousin Kate |
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| Me having a beer with the girls.... |
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| .....while the boys catch a quick power nap. |
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