August Dinner

This August we will be dining at the home of Elaine Fenner again.  We did this a few years ago and she prepares a delicious multi- course meal for us.  Be sure to look back through the blog for some pictures of the last time we were there.

The evening will be a shoe theme and you are encouraged to bring or wear your most outrageous or favorite pair of shoes.

Hope you can join us for a evening of fun, food, and friends!

Penelope and Morty December Date

Morty got us tickets to the Bears vs Lions game.  He knows a guy through work that got us on the field during warm ups!  We got to stand in the tunnel as the teams ran out for the game.  I almost touched a Bear!  Our tickets were on the 50, 10th row.  The game was amazing and we has tons of fun!!  Thanks for the great day Mort!

Craig and Stephanie's November Date

Every year we are lucky enough to head to Pine Crest Farms B&B for a relaxing weekend, which includes a set of tickets to the Husker game.  This year was our 14th year.  It started with our first anniversary.  After 14 years, never a disappointment.  They are like our little family there.  We stayed in our favorite room, which is decked out colonial style with its own private bath.  We always arrive on Friday night, this year more like Saturday morning (2am).  We usually start the weekend with a dinner and cocktail in Lincoln.  We spent the evening dancing at a bar to some country tunes.  We have actually listened to this band for the last 3 years.  They are not too bad for a cover band.  They even attempted a few songs by my boyfriend, Eric Church. 
We headed back and took in a great night's sleep.  We always wake to a lovely breakfast at 9 am.  They always have the room decked out in Husker gear and all the newspapers that cover pre-game news.  We play catch up with Don, Harriet, and Jack.  We love to see what has gone on in their lives.  In addition, we get to meet anyone else staying at the B&B for the weekend.  This particular weekend was full of teachers.
Prior to the game, our ritual includes a little shopping at Southpoint.  We had to split up because I had a little Christmas shopping to get done!  We then head to one of my most favorite venues of all time... Memorial Stadium.  We witnessed a great game against Penn State.
We headed to Chedders for post game eats and back to the B&B.  I was asleep within minutes.  We awoke to another lovely breakfast and some more great conversation. 
The great addition to our weekend is the fact that my in-laws watch the boys every year.  They love spoiling them and know it will happen each Fall.  Next year will be a November game again, I believe we picked Miami.  Fun times and Go BIg Red!

Amber & Matt October Date Summary

Originally, Matt and I had planned to do our date this past Saturday but opted for family day instead.  I had today off (Monday) and we decided we could do it today while B was at school and not have to worry about getting a baby sitter. 

I had wanted to do the Bookstore Date that I posted about several months ago.  I was dragging my feet and almost called if off because it sounded kind of dorky.  We discussed going to a movie, going home to take a nap, and I also thought of a few stores I really needed to stop at.  We ended up giving it a shot for something different and it was fun.  (It's also a budget friendly date!  No $ needed for the bookstore portion)

Matt a little minor injury in the line of duty early Saturday morning so we had do to some running around for that.   Pick up paperwork, stop at Dr. to get checked out, take paperwork back to another office.

Finally we were able to head over the river to the Big O.  We were not sure where we were going to eat lunch but knew there were some new places across from the bookstore we were going to.  I pointed to an area and said isn't there some stuff back there....we turned the corner and boom! Sushi right before our eyes!  We both love Sushi and new places that both of us have not been to. 

We were stuffed after we left and it was oh, so yummy!  Definitely somewhere we would return to.

We hopped in the car to cross the busy street to the shopping mall across the way.  Our destination was a Barnes and Noble book store where there would be plenty of choices.  We followed the basic structure of the date ideas on the link above but mixed them together and added our own twist.

We decided our tasks would be as following:

Together~
Find a cookbook with something you would want to cook for the other
Find a picture of a place you would like to travel together
Find a joke and read it to one another
Find an idea for a future date night

Then we split up to look for the next ones with plans to meet back in the Children's dept.

Alone~
Find a self help book for yourself (not one for your spouse...this is not something to cause a fight about ha!)
Find a book you think your partner would enjoy reading

Together~
Find a favorite book from your childhood or one that brings back a memory
Find a book together that has the words "happily ever after"

So....here we go~

Recipe.  I found mine rather quickly.  I was thinking I might find a sushi cookbook since we had talked about trying to improve our sushi rice cooking skills at lunch but couldn't find them. (later saw a different section I missed, oh well.)  Matt finally settled on something and when we both turned our books around I laughed that we had both picked Guy Fieri cookbooks!  Matt chose a peperoni burger and I selected blackened salmon from the visit Guy had to Dixie Quicks...one of our local eats that we love.  We actually thought of eating there for lunch but they are closed on Mondays.  (But lucky me has plans to go on Thurs. with the girls)

  Next we headed to the travel section.  There were no limits to our travel, just some places you wanted to vacation together.  I pretty much could have told you where Matt would pick. 

Matt showing off his Rome page.  Being the wrestler that he is, he has always wanted to visit the Colosseum. Matt did so good at being a dork and taking all of these pictures with me.  I know how he hates all the pictures I want to take all the time but was such a good sport!

 I am not much for international travel mainly because there is so much I want to see here in our homeland.  I would love to visit several beaches here in the US and tons of National Parks.  But, since it really was no limits, I went with Paris.  I am an art fan and have wanted to visit the Louvre since college. Other than that I have never really been interested but several friends have had their Paris pics up lately and I was especially intrigued by one new friends trip with her hubby (Shout out to Amanda- I'm sending you this blog link!).     The Eiffel Tower and the love lock bridge are tops on my Paris list.

 We headed on to the joke section.  Matt go there first since he was done in travel and said he couldn't find any "joke" books.  I said we could go to the kids section but after looking a little harder... we were able to find some.  At first he was opening them up and reading a few but I told him he had to read to himself and find one he wanted to share!  Ha!  I'm so bossy!

The humor section shares an aisle with the careers section.  There was a big guy right next to us and we were probably being annoying as heck reading our dumb jokes out loud.  The book I found had an occupational section.  I knew right away what I wanted to find and my official joke was something like this:

An police officer pulls over a man in a car.  The officer looks him over and says, "sir, your eyes are glossy- have you been drinking?"   The man says to the officer, "officer, your eyes look glazed- have you been eating doughnuts?"   I am pretty sure I had tears in my eyes I thought I was so funny.

Matt's was "My mom is a travel agent.  Her specialty is guilt trips".... lame Matt, lame.

After sharing a few laughs back and forth I asked the big man to take our picture.  I told him we were on a scavenger hunt and after he took the pic we would get out of his way and let him concentrate on his shopping.  He took the pic and as he handed me my camera back he said, "you are grinning so biiiigggggg".  Okay, thanks dude.


We tried to find some date night idea books and couldn't find anything.  The shelf was mainly how to date when you are single but not about date ideas/ dating your spouse.  We even went to the counter and asked and the girl looked it up on the computer only to come up with noting. 

Then it was time for us to split up.

Matt went to self help first while I headed to find one for him.  Once we met in the Children's dept. we went over our finds. 

Matt selected The Tao of Inner Peace and The Last Lecture for himself in self - help.  He said he has read The Last Lecture and it has lots of great life advice he can use.  I selected Sunny Side Up- 100 Ways to Be Happier Right Now.  I feel like sometimes I am so down and need to quit complaining about the crappy things that have happened. 

I thought the self help section would be a lot easier to choose something.  I didn't think there was a lot of variety like I expected.  My neck was actually starting to hurt because of reading book titles sideways.  Then I started to think about why book stores organize their books this way so it is difficult to read if you don't know what topic/ title you are looking for.   It seems that the problems people have that shop here are basically, stress, sadness, and addiction.  I guess I was just expecting to see a few books on a larger variety vs. several books on a few topics.

For the books we selected for each other- I picked the Butch Cassidy one for Matt.  He said he would like it , but I don't know.  He might have just been being nice.  He came back with a Nicholas Sparks, Jodi Picoult, and one other I had not heard of.  The Jodi Picoult one is on my reading list but I am usually too cheap to buy books at full price unless I really really want them.


As we walked around to find books from our childhood, I also could have told you which one Matt would have picked.   He selected Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day.    He has memories of his mom reading this book several times as a child. 

I was torn and could have selected several.  I ended up with Amelia Bedelia.  I remember my mom reading this book so many times to me (and the rest in the series) and I loved how Amelia always messed everything up!

Our last stop was to find a book with "...and they lived happily ever after."   I said we needed to find the fairy tails section so we split up and I quickly found it.  We started going through books together and I think we found it on our third try.  

And they lived happily ever after <3

PS- I know that book titles are supposed to be underlined.  too bad. deal with it this time.

Penelope and Morty October Date

Mort and I attended a fundraiser for a soup kitchen here in Detroit.  It was fancy pants so I got to wear a dress and Morty a suit.  Mort looks mighty fine in a suit.  Cocktails and apps during the silent auction followed by dinner and some serious live bidding.  Micheal Psilakis ( a chef on Bravo) did a cooking demonstration!  I got to meet some new people and get drunk on free booze! (free for me since Mort bought the tickets).  The soup kitchen raised over a million dollars that night.  That is a lot of soup.  I stole the chef hat center piece and now wear it when I cook.  It was a great night!

Amber and Matt September Date Summary

I didn't realize it was the 7th today! I saw the post from Penelope and Morty and it was a good reminder! 

I am bummed I don't have a picture from our September date.  We attended a dinner/ banquet for our adoption agency.  We received an invitation in the mail to the 120th anniversary celebration of the agency.  The invitation stated in honor of two families for their dedication / service, a woman who was receiving the first lifetime achievement award, and all adoptive families. 

When I saw that, I thought it might be fun for us to go.  It was a dress up thingy and I love dress up thingys when I can find something to wear.  I am fortunate enough to have some fashionable friends who let me borrow clothes that are more stylish than anything I have.  I thought we looked super cute (okay, super hot) but didn't take any pictures.  I don't know why- that is so not me.  I think I was just feeling that Matt gets tired of me always having people take our pics.   A photographer at the  event was taking pictures and took one of us.  I was so bummed that it was not one of the ones they posted on the site post event.  Maybe we were just too hot for it or something.

Anywho- this was on a Sunday night.  We sent B off with a grandma and headed to West O.  Cocktails started at 3:30 (Really?? On a Sunday???) so we planned to arrive around 4:30 with dinner being at 5:30.  Since Matt had to work that night, he enjoyed a pepsi while I had wine.  We walked around / stood around enjoying our hors d'oeuvres and not knowing anyone.  We hoped that our caseworker would be there and she arrived shortly before dinner.

We were assigned to table 31 and the people we sat with were interesting.  One couple was very nice and best friends with the woman receiving the Lifetime achievement award.  They were very happy for her.  The other two couples were an adoptive family.  It was the adoptive parents and the grown adopted child and her husband.  They had some interesting comments once they found out we were a "waiting family".  Bordering on the line of tacky comments. :)  Oh, the joys of infertility.

Our caseworker also sat with us so it was nice to catch up with her as well.  She has just recently returned to work following a battle with cancer.  Fight hard girl!

As we sat there during the presentation, I thought to myself that I could do this every week.  I could get dressed up and attend different banquets.  Even though they can sometimes be boring, I love the yummy food served to me, meeting new people, and looking pretty!  I'm not sure Matt would feel the same way about attending random banquet events however!

I did find it really interesting and enjoyed learning some new things about our agency that I was not aware of.  It was neat to see the families/ woman who were honored and the service they provide.  I am proud to be a part of our agency and can't wait until we are able to be an advocate for adoption.

After Dinner, Matt won the floral centerpiece for having a birthday just a few days previously and let the girl with no filter take then home.  We hopped in the car and stopped at grandmas to pick up our favorite 7 year old and called it a night!

Penelope and Morty September Date

Morty and I went to Greektown Casino for the weekend.  I lost money, Mort lost more money.  We had a nice lunch and a few cocktails Saturday afternoon then took naps!  We went out for dinner then ended the night with some rap music.  Ah Detriot.  A nice glass of wine with some thumping beats.