Alphabetical Dates: Inspired by the Letter F

I know! We are so out of order on our alphabetical dates! We did E before D and G before F. Like I said before, it's good we're not trying to teach the alphabet through this project!

I think perhaps the best words to describe the date weekend inspired by the letter F include: fluid, fluctuating, frustrating, and fickle.

Pretty much the whole date went nothing as I planned it, and while it was still overall good and definitely memorable, it was also flabbergasting.

The original plan for this date was a fondue night at home. But when I realized how much all the cheese and dipping items were going to cost, I decided we would make our date fit into some of the plans we already had for the weekend. Cheaper!! (Or should I say frugal?)


So our date started Friday night with our Friday night fellowship fete to mark the end of our Bible study we've been doing with Ryan's co-workers! We had a pitch-in dinner with burgers and brats and all sorts of snacks. Ryan built a deviled egg burger he was pretty proud of.

I didn't get many pictures that night (fail!!!) and one of the other girls said she'd send me hers, but I don't have them yet. Even so, it was a really fun evening. I love a good party.

We continued the date on Saturday, and that was the day that ended up making us crazy! I shared this picture on my Facebook page and said something about dates not going as planned, because I don't want everyone to think that everything is always perfect here in Shafferland. We have a good life and a great marriage and we really do have a lot of fun together, but don't have some sort of Midas touch that makes everything void of imperfections. I want to be honest about that, because I don't ever want to give off false impressions that we have everything automatically easy!

We've got some GREAT stories about this day that I'll save for the podcast tomorrow because they are even better told than written, I think.

We started the day with an appointment for our car (recreating our first date, apparently), and after that, we were kind of hungry, but not very, so we found this little donut shop and got a donut. We had to eat in our car because there were way too many people for the table space in that little shop!

We went shopping for fun finds at some of our favorite stores while we were out of town. Found some good deals for our new patio space!

I had a pretty raging headache by this point, so I asked if we could go through Starbucks for some iced fresh brew to try to temper the thing, and while we sat in the line, a lady from the car behind us came up to our car, told us she'd paid for our order, and handed us a little card to explain her random act of kindness. WHAT?!?!?!?!?! A freebie? This has never happened to us! We've heard of such things, but they've never happened to us!

The card tells about little baby Josie, who lived just 18 days, and her family started this initiative called Josie's Impact, to spread the word about her life and encourage people to do random acts of kindness in her honor and memory. (And yes, we will be paying this forward!) If you want to see some of the things people have done, just search #josiesimpact.

We tried to shop at the Goodwill, but it was the first Saturday of the month and everything was 50% off, so the place was a madhouse. I found an amazing reference book I wanted, but I couldn't justify standing in line for over an hour for one book. We came back at the end of the day, and it was gone. Great sadness. (And par for the day.)

We went to Red Robin for lunch, and Ryan scored his free food, because it's his birthday month, so he earned a free meal! YAY!!!

Then we went to see a flick: Beauty and the Beast! I'd been itching to see it, but I wanted to wait until the crowds died down, and it paid off! Our theater was pretty empty!

I thought it was incredible in music and cinematography! They did add a few songs that were not in the original movie, and they changed a handful of lyrics to existing songs, but they left in enough of the amazing stuff that it was okay. I thought I would cry multiple times, but I only cried once! (And that was when she walked into the library. Not even kidding. All those books just made me straight up cry!)

Also - I would like to have these seats. They rocked! Literally!

We had a couple more stores to hit, and LOOK WHAT WE SAW ON THE WAY?????

Oh, be still my heart!

So see? Despite the many frustrations of the day, it was still a good 2-day date, and we piled up a good number of blessings!!!

Now! Back on track! Letter H is next!

Surprise Date!

If you heard the podcast yesterday, you've already heard a little bit about my surprise date this past weekend, but I know some of you have asked to see pictures, so here you go!!: )

First, let me say to any guys who are out there reading: TAKE YOUR GIRLS ON SURPRISE DATES!!! It really is one of the sweetest things Ryan does, and he has always been very good at it. {He planned our entire first date all by himself, and I had no idea what we were doing until each stage of the day came along.}

All I knew, when I got up last Saturday, was that we were going on a date somewhere in or near Indianapolis, we needed the weather to be nice, and I should wear comfortable shoes, because we would be doing a lot of walking.

Ryan fixed our breakfast and made our coffee and off we went!!

On the way, he finally revealed the date. We would be doing a scavenger hunt of downtown Indianapolis!

We made our way to Monument Circle...ahhh the memories of our first anniversary trip! We came down this very road that afternoon, and I have a picture much like this one from that day!

Ryan found this idea on Groupon, purchasing one from Big City Hunt. I'd never heard of this site before, but basically it is a site where you can do a hunt in a number of big cities {see what they did with the name, there?}, and Indianapolis is one of them. The entire hunt is done through your phone. You don't go to any physical shop in the cities to check in. It's all mobile.

So we headed to the check-in point, which was a church on the Circle:

The hunt works this way: you receive a question/clue on your phone, along with multiple choice answers. When you have the answer, you enter it and move on to the next clue. With each clue, you move around the city, learn fun bits of trivia, and improve your teamwork!

I don't want to give away all the answers, but I'll show you some of the fun pictures we took that day. {Note: it's not a photo scavenger hunt. You don't have to take any pictures at all. But I don't even understand a day without pictures.} Some of these, we just took for fun. Not all are in relation to a clue.

{The grouchy faces were moments of clue struggle. LOL.}

We just so happened to end by a Starbucks. So it only seemed appropriate to celebrate.

After we finished our date, we headed to Costco. {I knew about this part of the date before we went.} We'd never been there before, but we had a gift card and wanted to check it out!

We had been told their food court had delicious food, so that's where we ate a mid-afternoon lunch. Ryan's sandwich was MASSIVE!! Mine was good - although I skipped the bread. {Didn't want to. Needed to save calories.}

On the way home, we needed more coffee, so back to Starbucks we went...and we got our coffee for FREE! They said we waited in line too long. We didn't think so, but we also didn't argue!

And because we raved forever on the podcast about the size of the mums we got at Costco, I thought you should see what I mean!

Thanks, Ryan, for planning such a fun date for us. I had a great day! It was such a treat to have you all to myself for a whole Saturday, and I loved what you planned!

The Shafferland Shuffle

* Last Sunday morning, we drove my sister, Lori, to the airport, so she could fly back home after Mom's party. I was so glad she had been able to come for the party, but I wasn't ready for her to go home so soon!! We stopped for a breakfast date on the way home and then...we got to keep Miss Phoebe!!! She came over for the afternoon and evening, and we had a grand time, going for walks, visiting Grandpa, and taking naps. We love Phoebe!!

* Monday signaled the return to normalcy for us. Ryan captured this gorgeous sunrise on the way to work, and I got busy cleaning up after all the party. Decorations and supplies had to be put away...and there were also many veggies to eat, since Mom brought that ginormous veggie tray to her own party! LOL! Salads all week long! I guess there were too many salads, because Ryan sent me a picture of the "big bowl of snacks" at work. I mean, seriously! Have you ever seen a bowl this big???

* Tuesday was a big day...because Ryan's grandpa got out of the rehab hospital! :) We were happy to see how much he had improved!! And other than that, the day was just filled with regular things, like sitting in the carpool line with my coffee and going for power walks with Ryan. {This is a new thing for us, and I'm obsessed with beating our previous time. On this day, we beat it by FOUR MINUTES!!}

* Got a special treat on Wednesday: Ryan ended up with the afternoon off work, unexpectedly!!! We took a long nap, went for a coffee run, and caught up on all our DVR shows that we were STILL behind on from the Olympics. Ryan and Braeya got into a little bit of a remote war. I'm not sure who won.

* Thursday was a pretty low key day. Oh how I have longed for low key days! Hung out at home with Braeya, who was extra needy of drinks from the sink that day {eyeroll}, laid in the hammock to read my novel, and watched Ryan eat M and Ms from a bowl. Because that's how we do things around here.

* Friday was our 45th monthiversary, and it was nearly a perfect day!! We got a pretty exciting surprise in the mail, which I will tell you about soon, and we enjoyed a fun date out on the town that evening. Went to Burger King, which is NOT on the clean eating list, but we were celebrating and that happens to be one of my favorites. And we went to our remaining Starbucks, too. :) Thankful for 45 months together with Ryan!

* Yesterday was SUCH a fun day. Ryan planned a surprise date for me, and until we were on our way, I had no idea what it was! We went to Indianapolis and did a scavenger hunt of the downtown area. I can't wait to tell you all about it. Great date idea!! It was a treat to have him all to myself for a whole day after all of the busyness of the last month!

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!!