The Shafferland Shuffle

Happy last day of April!! It's been a cold and rainy weekend here, so I'm looking forward to these April showers bringing along some May flowers!!

* Last Sunday, we went to lunch with the Shaffer side of the family to celebrate the April birthdays: Ryan and his brother, Nick. We ate at Chili's and it was most delicious!

* Monday was Ryan's actual birthday (I'll finish telling you about our celebration tomorrow) and he had parties all day long! His work people brought treats for him and we had a date that evening. It was a fun day!

* Tuesday was hair day for this girl. Long overdue upgrade to the old color, and I'm pretty sure I pulled in radio waves with all this foil! After we both got home that evening, we had salad for dinner, but it was one of those nights when a salad didn't cut it. Dessert needed. We tried to get a Frosty, but the line was insane, so we splurged on Blizzards!!!! YUM!!!

* Wednesday evening was a kiddo-watching night for me, which was fun, and then Ryan and I hurried to the end of a viewing for the grandmother of some of our friends. On the way home, it got super crazy stormy in a hurry, and here are my thoughts on being out in that! We were fortunate - no hail damage. Some people got extensive damage! WE were also fortunate to get this gorgeous rainbow!!

 * Thursday was a busy work day, and when I went to get the mail, I found this blanket featuring Ryan's face. LOL!!! (It was something a friend of ours ordered - a photo collage - and she wanted a picture of us included. It's odd to see yourself on a blanket!) We had NO food in the house, so Subway made our dinner, and then it was an office-working night. All my favorite things in one space: Ryan and books!

* Friday I narrowly escaped setting off our fire alarm while cooking chicken at lunch. The whole house was thick with haze, but the alarm never went off. WHEW! In the land of new things we have tried this month, we went on a double-date mani-pedi with our friends on Friday night. Yes. You read that right. Oh my. Ryan's first pedi. He wasn't sure what to think of it, but he was a great sport! I got pretty coral fingernails, and we had fun with our friends.

* And then there was yesterday. OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH yesterday. Ryan was gone from early, early morning until evening at an all day continuing education course with one of his co-workers. In his absence, I began a 3 day detox cleanse that very well may kill me. No meat. No dessert. No coffee. Pray for us both.

Marriage Retreats and Begging for Lies

This past weekend, Ryan and I went on a marriage retreat...the same one we went to last year. It's held up in Fort Wayne at the Hilton and it's a great opportunity for us to meet up with old friends...make new friends...and have some fun. And learn.

Our room this year was on the top floor of the hotel with a really nice view out over the city...including the baseball field! {We would like you to think we were in the Presidential Suite...but um...not so much.}

Friday night, some of our friends were going out to eat and invited us to go along, so we went...even though we had just loaded up on all that chocolate at DeBrand. We ordered Lobster Bisque, and it was terrible. Good flavor, but no chunks of lobster!! It was like eating baby food! Boo!! But the company was fun, anyway!

Dr. John Townsend was the speaker at the marriage retreat...he has written and co-written a bunch of books, including all the Boundaries books. He's a really great speaker...so entertaining...and had good things to teach as well.

I did disagree with him once, though. He did a session about communication and how it's important to not lie and to always be open and offer grace before offering the truth. He said, "Guys, even if your wife walks out and asks if this outfit makes her look fat, be truthful." I looked Ryan straight in the eye and said, "NO. The answer to Does this make me look fat? is always no. ALWAYS. Lie. Lie lie lie lie lie!!!!!!"

But other than that, I was on board with everything he said!

It was great to be able to spend more time with our friends...here's a glimpse of some of our fun!

I have been Facebook friends with a couple Ryan knew from before we were married...but this was the first time I'd really gotten to spend time with them and actually get to know them. LOVED them! They were so much fun, and Saturday night, we had a great time playing Wii bowling together. It was Troy's first time to play. He won.

 Remember Adam and Sara from our wedding? They've moved away, and we never get to see them anymore, but they made the trip back for the retreat, and it was fun to see them...and they're still fun!

 Saturday afternoon, the whole group went out to eat at Biaggi's...where I had a low-cal chicken and artichoke pizza that was so spicy that I went through three glasses of water and ended up unable to taste anything. {It really wasn't my weekend for stellar food choices.}

 Adam's group selfie. I thought he did a pretty good job!! {That's Adam down there in the corner. The nose.}

 Back to the Wii Bowling night...Ryan's stellar form.

 I didn't fare so well.

 And this is Troy's cute wife, Cilicia. I really enjoyed getting to know her!

So that's our marriage retreat in a nutshell!! And Ryan, when you read this, remember - LIE!!!!!!!!!!!

Double Date!

What should the Shaffers do when there's a crazy blowing snow/drifting snow advisory in the future?

HEAD TO INDY FOR A DATE!!!!

And that's just what we did this past Friday night. We had plans to meet up with our friends Mike and Angie for a double date to Fogo de Chao in Indianapolis.

So...I packed the car with a blanket, extra food and water, and my warmest coat, and we set out to pick up our friends. {This is the look of sheer terror in my face, by the way.}

 Fogo de Chao {if you are not familiar} is a Brazilian restaurant and is normally far, far, far out of our price range. But a couple of times a year, they participate in a thing called "Devour Downtown," which results in...crazy great specials! So that's how this date came about. Oh...and I should mention that we couldn't get a reservation until 9:00 p.m. - about an hour and a half from home. Sweet mercy.

So here's how this works:

They give you a little coaster that has two sides...red and green. When you want more food, you turn the green side up. When you are set {at least for the moment}, you turn the red side up.

And when I say "more food," I mean more meat. I'm a self-proclaimed meatatarian and have NEVER in my life seen this much meat in one place. The skewers of meat to end all skewers of meat are brought to your table and a piece shaved off onto your plate. {You pick the "doneness" of the meat and if that server doesn't have it, he finds the one that does.} And there are about a dozen kinds to choose from.

Yeah. You thought I was kidding. Look at that meat skewer up there!

Mike was in meat heaven!! {He is SO funny!!!}

And his lovely date, Angie:

Ryan was a pretty happy boy himself:

I promise I ate more than this:

The place was absolutely PACKED - and the servers were really good about getting around quickly to fill up our plates. My favorite piece of meat was the Parmesan pork. It was SO tasty.

And then...we had dessert. Key lime pie and coffee. My mouth waters even now, just thinking about it.

Love being out on the town with this guy:

And I have come to really enjoy spending time with these two:

We had a fun night - but MAN was I nervous for the drive home!

I ended up sleeping most of the way from Indianapolis to Kokomo because I was SO nervous about the white-outs. But then I helped navigate the rest of the way home - through THIS mess:

{That would be us driving through the opposite lane because ours was full of drifted snow.}

We got home at 1:30 in the morning and I was so relieved to be safe in our driveway!!

The Shafferland Shuffle

* Last Sunday morning, we walked to church in the cold and snow...if we ever move, we have decided we will miss walking to church! Even in the cold and snow! We spent the afternoon watching football {Ryan} and scrapbooking {me} {as if you needed those explanations}. I made stuffed crescent rolls in honor of the playoff game, and I tried to enjoy the beautiful sunset. We are looking forward to warmer spring evenings when we can take sunset walks again!

* Monday I spent the majority of the day at work settling into my new office...yes, still. We had so much stuff to sort and weed through! I purged many files and organized the bookcases. Ryan and I went to the gym that night and then came home to watch the Downton episode we missed on Sunday...and we ate some chocolate cookies! {Not enough to negate the gym.}

* Tuesday I did more settling at work and actually got to write some interview questions on a big, clean desk...heavenly. Loved it. We stayed home that night and Ryan grilled {yes, grilled! In the cold!} and I worked on some gift/craft projects. Oh! And we watched makeover week on the Biggest Loser. You guys - ugliest cry I've had in weeks. Two solid hours of near sobbing. Such. A. Sap.

* Wednesday. was. so. cold. And the bad news? It's only going to get colder!! Our new office at work still doesn't have all the heating bugs worked out, so I never ended up taking off my scarf the entire day, trying to stay warm! {And if I'm cold, that's bad news.} So that night Ryan and I layered up the clothes, warmed our hands over the oven after we made garlic bread and then I hunkered down by the fire to use my new Shellac polish to do my first French manicure in YEARS!!!!

* Thursday afternoon, I debated about whether to drive home the interstate or the back way. Picked the interstate. Thought it would be okay. Thought wrong! Passed a nasty accident and it took longer to come home than if I'd gone the back way. Lesson learned! It was national pie day, but we were too cold to go back out and celebrate, so we ate pie-shaped cake instead. That counts, right? And guess who got to be part of BLT? RYAN!! He called in and spent some time on the air with Lynne and me. Love it when he does that!

* Friday morning I was so excited to see the sun coming up DURING my commute! HURRY, SPRING!!!! I had a good day at work - complete with sharing chocolate chip cookies with my friends! That night, despite the crazy weather predictions, Ryan and I drove to Indianapolis to have a double date with our friends, Mike and Angie. We had dinner at Fogo de Chao - and got home in the blustry, white-out filled winter at 1:30 in the morning.

* Saturday was such a wildly disappointing day. We had plans to drive to the lake and attend the wedding of some of our friends, but the weather was still so bad and the drifting/white-out reports were rolling in, so we stayed home. I was SO sad! I've been looking forward to this wedding for months! Our plan B was to rest...to sleep until almost 11, to write and write and write in our book, and to enjoy a bit of a treat for dinner - ice cream!! It was great to spend the day with Ryan - wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else in a Plan B sort of day.

And the end of the Road Trip

Here's a wrap-up of our weekend away to visit our friends!

Ryan really wanted to go eat at Giordano's pizza, which they have up in the Chicago area...have you ever heard of it? It is like the pizza of all pizzas. Check this out! This is what it must mean to see a real pizza pie:

 To get a pizza like this means you have to wait about a half hour, so while we waited, we entertained ourselves with photos:

And the fun didn't stop there! After we ate, Adelaide asked if she could see what was in my purse. Among the things in my purse: a tripod. {Don't give me that look. That is not weird!!!}

She wanted to take pictures using said tripod, so she and Ryan got to work on that.

On our way home from dinner, they took us past a house where the couple built an actual pirate ship in their front yard - for their wedding! It was dark when we went by, so my picture is a bit blurry, but here you go:

We spent the night again Saturday night and went to church with Frog and Jenna on Sunday morning!

Adelaide offered us both books during church. This is what she gave to Ryan:

I told Ryan that he's going to be her Brian. {Brian was the guy I had my first crush on - at age four.}

After church, we went back to Frog and Jenna's for lunch - and a little coloring:

 

And then it was time to head home! We, much like the wise men, went home by a different route. Still took us forever, but at least we didn't spend two hours sitting in one spot!

Sorry my head is so big. I was covering the sun. Now THAT is a big head. When it covers the sun.

Thank you, Indiana for repairing your broken "welcome to Indiana" sign.

Oh wait. I remember. You didn't fix it.


We didn't get home until about 10:00 at night - but it was a FANTASTIC weekend!!!

Melting Pot Date

Good Nellie...I've been so busy catching up on everything else...I FORGOT TO COVER OUR MELTING POT DATE! So, without further ado...our double date to the Melting Pot.

One of my favorite things about getting married has been the chance to make new friends through Ryan and to introduce him to mine. Two of his friends, Mike and Angela, were the very first couple we went to dinner with after we got married. They wanted to meet up for dinner again, so the four of us hopped in the car and drove to Indianapolis to have dinner at The Melting Pot.

Neither Mike nor I had been there before, and it had been several years since Ryan or Angela had been, so we were like four newbies at the place. And. We. Had. A. Blast.

Have you ever been there? It's a fondue restaurant, and we had the greatest waiter in the world. Between the company, the waiter, and the food, I'm not sure I've ever had more fun going out to eat! Want to peek at our evening?

We started with the cheese - which may have been my favorite. I mean you cannot go wrong with cheese. Our waiter brought out all the ingredients for the cheese fondue and mixed it all up together right in front of us - in our little fondue pot in the middle of the table. The cheese round had bread, vegetables and apples that could be dipped in it. I liked everything I dipped in except the apples.

After that...we had salads. Mine had a house dressing that was quite yummy:

Then it was time for the main course. So. Much. Food. Y'all. We picked out the broth we wanted to cook it in, and they brought it out already hot and put it on our burner. They brought a pot of veggies - mushrooms, broccoli, potatoes, etc. - and we could dump those in to cook them. Then we chose our meat platter and they brought the meat out raw. We cooked it in the broth and then could add whatever kinds of little sauces and dips we wanted.

While we ate, we just had the greatest time together...talking, laughing, learning more about each other, telling stories, driving the people at the table next to us NUTS, I'm sure!!

{Sorry - it's a low lighting place and we were using phones for photos so as not to be the crazy paparazzi people for those having romantic dates.}

I was so full after this round but we couldn't skip dessert. I didn't finish dessert and still don't think I've ever felt so miserable in all my life. In a delightful sort of way.

With our dessert came some of THE BEST COFFEE I've ever had in my life. Ryan was fond of the mugs and even asked the manager if they sold them. HA!! They do not. But they were awfully cool.

And then we had a chocolate/peanut butter/caramel/marshmallow fluff goodness with a sampler platter of cheesecake and marshmallows and brownies and strawberries and pound cake and bananas and rice krispie treats and these amazing little candied nuts.

I die.

And as for Ryan...well...

We were there over three hours and it felt like nothing. I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed it. Dates like this are a splurge...definitely not how we can live all the time. But it was wonderful in every possible way.

Thankful for new friends!