A few weeks ago I found Tommy John and was inspired to do a "Dream Date Night Outfit" post for both men and women. It's an intriguing concept for me because I've been wanting to include Chris in some of my fashion posts. So while the full outfit post will be posted tomorrow for #FashionFriday, I thought it would also be fun to write a bit about my dream date night as well as mine and Chris's general style.
I've said it before, and I know how cheesy it sounds, but Chris is my soulmate, so any date night with him is my dream date. Chris and I are very laid back and sometimes lazy people. We don't often do big extravagant dates, especially considering how poor we are. We tend to do things that are free or cheap. While movies and dinner are a common date night for us, some of our more exciting dates include exploring nature or the city.
However, all that being said, if I could truly have my dream date night, it would start with a classy dinner at a nice restaurant that had big windows of some beautiful view. Then some window shopping and exploring through a big city that has a lot of character and history. And then rounding off the night with a walk on the beach.
All of these things are clearly unavailable in our current hometown in Cache Valley, but that's the dream.
In my fashion posts I'm sure you've noticed that I dress very casually. Even when I'm wearing dresses or heels, it's still a very comfortable look. Chris and I are very similar in that way. We know how to dress up, and enjoy doing so. We love going to weddings, putting on our best, and dancing like crazy people (honestly, we are such good dancers at weddings, everyone should invite us to their weddings). And while we like dressing up formally, a typical or even dream date apparel for us would be casual.
It is my personal opinion that while on a date you should be comfortable. A lot of guys seem to get too stressed out over dates and either overdress or underdress. It's very important to dress for the date. If you're doing dinner and a movie, it's okay to be casual, but not sloppy. But if your date is a wedding or a fancier restaurant, it's important to look well put together.
When I was reached out to about this post, I was asked to think about fashion-challenged men. And while I don't consider myself an expert on fashion, not even in the slightest, my personal style is something I enjoy creating and I think it's important for everyone to figure out their own style. But in also thinking of date nights, I figure I'll be a little more specific to help those looking for help on an upcoming date.
First off, autumn is the best time of year for dates. Corn mazes, haunted houses, pumpkin patches, leaves changing... you cannot ask for a more perfect time of year to find someone you like and start dating. Chris and I met in October and a lot of what started our relationship had to do with autumn and Halloween activities (especially considering our first kiss was on Halloween).
It's my anniversary month! I wanted to put up this post closer to my anniversary, but this particular post has taken me months to create and it has been delayed. But it's still May, still my anniversary month, so here it is!
No, I did not document my first full year of marriage the way I probably should have. But I have worked hard in the past year to show my love for my husband and to build our relationship. We've been through trials, we've been through changes, things weren't always the way we thought they would be. But we learned how marriage works together and marriage has been the greatest blessing of my life. Note: Just because I wrote all these down doesn't mean I'm perfect and follow every last tip, I'm not perfect and still have things to work on. (PS, there is a very good chance the pictures won't all show up, I apologize for that but I don't think I'm going to take the time to fix them if they end up not showing. I'm trying to get ones that work but just know that there's a possibility of a blank picture. I also apologize for any grammatical issues, but again, not going through and fixing them.)
So, here is a years worth of marriage tips, tricks, and advice... 365 days worth... A lot... As in, the longest blog post of my life... yeah... you don't have to read it all in one sitting.
Don't forget the kisses everyday!!
When you burn the food, laugh.
"Oh money, where did you go? Maybe we should keep track..."
Changes happen... again and again and again and again.
I think even grownups need a time-out sometimes.
"How dare you do this! I'm so mad at you! [Insert How I Met Your Mother Quote here]" Laughter ensues, argument over.
"I want to do this." "And I want to do this." Always make decisions together.
.....
Relax and take a trip, get away from being an adult.
"Aww man, we eat out too much I'm getting fat!" You put on the weight together, take it off together. Gym time together can be super fun!
Car rides can be the absolute funnest thing with your spouse! Sing-alongs, car games, and long talks. Best thing ever!
Take time to step out of your comfort zone and do something the other one likes. Don't hide in your shell.
My husband is a soccer player and he's obsessed with the sport. He can tell you almost all the players in the EPL, he always knows the most current stats and news. Sometimes it can be hard with him always looking up soccer news on his phone, but when I go to his soccer games I can see that it's all just for the love of the game and it's so incredible seeing how happy it makes him. I'm proud to support my husband in something he loves.
Cooking together, making messes together, all means having fun together.
Introduction... I can't think of a good introduction... Oh! I'm so excited that I'm almost to 30,000 page views!! Please share this post with all your friends so we can reach our goal! Thanks!
I really want a sewing machine. I have so many Pinterest crafts that I want to do but can't because of the lack of sewing machine. I suppose it's fine, I mean I can hardly find time to read for Book Club so how would I find time to sew? But someday I'll get a sewing machine and this article will be very helpful to me.
I just want to dance again. I miss it so much!
It's no secret on this blog that I love Ellen Degeneres. I think she is fantastic and hilarious.
I'll be honest, I don't know if I fully understand this picture. But I'll accept it. A dinosaur band? I like it.
What a way to draw someones attention. Who doesn't want to be smarter, more attractive and more interesting? So we will definitely be looking at these books for Book Club in the future. If there is one in particular that you want to read, just go to the Book Club page and leave a comment to vote for it!
I love the look of this bookshelf for either my future home or even my future classroom. The blog that posted this put it in her child's nursery and it looks so cute! You can check it out by CLICKING HERE.
When I was little I used to wear our tree skirt around the house around Christmas time, but I don't think it would fit me anymore. However, I think this is genius and I could figure out a way to make this work for me! I love the way this looks so I'm really considering it for my Christmas attire. Except...
Hello everybody! Welcome to October!! I love October because it ends with my favorite holiday, Halloween, and leads into November 4th, which is my birthday!! I also absolutely love this autumn time of year! I'm so excited for hay rides, corn mazes, pumpkin carving, and the ever beautiful fall leaf colors!!
So before we lead into October, here is my September in review, which is basically a small compilation of all the things I did during the month of September, with pictures!!!
So it rained a lot in the month of September in Logan. And elsewhere, I was so sad to hear about all the flooding and mud slides! I'm praying for everyone affected by it! But with it being the first big rain storm since we moved to Logan, we had tons of fun playing out in the rain. It was a blast! I love spending so much time with my husband!
So I bought these new rod curlers to try them out, you can read about that HERE. I did two things with them, curling and a sock-ish bun (because it wasn't a sock, it was a curler). I am still debating with how much I like these curlers. They tangle in my hair to easily and rip some of my hair out, but I do like the results. But I only really used them the beginning of the month, so I haven't fully figured them out. If you want a tutorial on either of the styles above, just leave a comment below!
Chris started soccer intramurals again!! If you've ever heard our love story, we met through intramurals. He was on my roommate's co-ed team and the rest, as they say, is history. So his first game was at 9:30 at night in the pouring rain, which is the reason for the poor quality photo. It's also the reason for this:
Honestly, that experience was so incredibly to me. She seriously went out of her way to keep me from getting wet in the rain. It's so incredible to have an experience like this and be able to see that there is still so much good in the world!! Honestly, Caitlin (or however you spell it), I cannot thank you enough!
Once upon a time it was Friday the 13th, and I had to give an oral book report in class. I was super nervous! My hands were shaking, I had prepared late the night before, and I had that awful fast/nervous speaking voice. My book was Inside Out: Strategies for Teaching Writing. It was over 300 pages long, I had about two week to read it, and (don't tell my professor or parents) I didn't read one page. I skimmed through the whole book, read all the chapter headings, looked online for summaries and reviews (which there were none) and I basically just made up my report. It went really well though and on the written section, I got an "A"! However, on the oral section, I accidentally called the book a novel, not even thinking about it. I knew by definition the book wasn't considered a "novel", but it was merely a slip of the tongue... but my teacher certainly didn't think so. She called me out on it right away: "A novel? Do you know what a novel is?" I was already incredibly nervous, but now I was incredibly embarrassed! "I know, I didn't mean to say that." I tried to cover up my mistake, but it was too late. She had chastised me in front of the class and my face turned red with embarrassment. And that is my Friday the 13th story.... and watching and smelling as my coworker cleaned throw up out of the garbage can, but that's a whole other issue.
First of all, I'm kind of upset at my dad for lifting up his hand and ruining the only good photo I have of my brother from this day. So football season began and I had the wonderful opportunity to drive for two hours in horrible dark rain to watch my old high school's football game... just for my brother performing at half time. The Alta High School Marching Band is new this year, and I'm so glad my brother is able to be on it for his senior year and doing something he loves. He did a fantastic job! I would show you pictures from when he was on the field (at Rio Tinto, which was pretty cool) but my sister took pictures and I recorded it. I might put the video up, but I don't have any pictures because my sister hasn't made them available to me yet. I had a great time watching my brother doing something he loves! He went to all my dance performances and I was very happy to go and support him too!
Speaking of my brother, this handsome boy turned 18 on the 18th! He is seriously one of my best friends in the whole world and I just love him so much!! I was really sad I couldn't be there to celebrate his birthday with him, but I got to over the phone!! While he was opening presents, my family had me on speaker phone so I could hear what was going on. After presents, we all sang to him before he blew out his amazing Darth Vader candle:
It was sad to not be there, but I got to be a part of his birthday anyways, so I was happy. Nick really is like my best friend and I just love him so much. Even if he did grow to be almost a foot taller than me, he will always be my little brother Nick!
And for any of my LDS peeps wondering, he is not going on a mission yet because he's still in school. He'll probably be putting his papers in next summer, which is totally crazy to me! He's too old! It still weirds me out that he can drive, it's even worse that he's a senior this year... stop growing up Nick!!
After two months of searching I finally found Impress, Press on Manicure. I have an official review HERE, but just know I absolutely loved it!! It looked so good and took less than five minutes. I love it!
I wasn't there, but my husband came home one Saturday with this monster fish!! It weighed about four pounds (our scale didn't work well with measuring the fish) was almost two feet long, and it tasted delicious!! It was super scary though, take a look at it's teeth:
(The eyes only look so scary because of my camera flash, but it really is a scary fish, and big) On the same day Chris also caught this fish:
Who wouldn't die. Honestly. He came home from fishing and we had somewhere to go so he stuck them all (there was a third fish too) in the sink and put them in water so they wouldn't start to rot and stink. The bass pictured above (which I apologize for the blood on the fish and my husband's hand...sorry!) started breathing again once we filled the sink with water, but he was upside down and bleeding so we didn't think much of it. Two hours later when we got back from our thing, we came home to find him still breathing. I then suffered though watching Chris and his friend Ben banging the fish's head on our sink to try and kill him as well as stabbing. I then also watched the entire gutting of all three fish, which was a very bloody and dramatic sight where we found half swallowed baby fish inside of them.
I think I learned from this experience that I never want to gut a fish. I also learned that my husband is a very good fisherman and a tough man who didn't flinch whatsoever while cutting open three fish. I also learned that I never want to see people hitting fish against my sink. Lastly I learned that when Chris guts a fish in my sink, he knows he is then required to clean the whole kitchen, and he did a wonderful job at that. And he did a wonderful job at cooking the big one the next day. It was super delicious. He is so talented!
Now onto the thing that kept us from those fish for two hours. I put on my Latin ballroom costume, did my hair in a fake bob, Chris put on a white shirt and tie, and we headed out to the USU Literary Ball!! This years theme was The Great Gatsby, which is one of my favorite books! We were late because we thought it was a seven, but it really started at six. We got to watch the last half of the new Great Gatsby movie (which we both love) and got to eat some pizza. They also had poker (which we didn't do) and dancing (which we did for like five seconds). I was sad because I had been looking forward to it so much, but I was sick with a sore throat, runny nose and extreme exhaustion. I just couldn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to. It was decorated beautifully and it was super exciting to see everyone from my English classes all dressed up like the 20's, but I was too sick to have fun. I wish I hadn't been sick. :(
Speaking of being sick, I was so incredibly miserable that my boss allowed me a day off of work. That is when I found the above video. I honestly have watched this video over thirty times, I'm so in love! It is the cutest thing that I have ever seen in my life. I know I shared it for a Web Video Wednesday post, but I just had to share it again. So cute!!
This is out of order from everything else, but I want to thank everyone again for loving this post as much as I do! I never thought that a single post would bring up my page views so quickly! I feel so incredibly blessed by all of you! If you liked this post, know that in October my husband and I will be doing a lot of things on this list, there are many fall related items, so please check back to read about our adventures in Cache Valley.
This month I wrote a pretty depressing post in my anger, and I do apologize for that, although the majority of it is true. I wrote about how I am currently friendless and really struggling with depression (which I've had my whole life anyways). I want you all to know that while I am still struggling, I do know that I have the greatest family in the world! My family are the greatest friends I could have ever asked for and I feel so blessed to have them with me for eternity. I love my new family as well, my three new brothers who are all serving missions and my amazing in-laws. My wonderful mother-in-law contacted me when she found out I was sick and gave me suggestions on how to get better faster. She is amazing and I love being the new addition to their family. I know I am blessed, so I do apologize for that post, I wasn't trying to say everything in my life is terrible. I was only saying I wish I had more friends. Sorry for the confusion.
This month we celebrated four months of being together! I feel so unbelievably blessed to be married to this sweet, wonderful, sexy man. He takes care of me when I'm sick and even when I'm just lazy. He cleans our apartment when I'm away. He cooks me meal and makes me brownies. He constantly tells me how beautiful I am even when I don't feel it. I love him more than anything in the world and I am so happy that he is mine for eternity! Our life together is perfect.
Well, that's my September! I hope you all had a fantastic September and are as excited for October as I am! Thanks for reading!!
Leave a comment if you like posts like this and link up your own posts or videos like this in the comments below. Thanks everyone!
So Sunday was our 3 month anniversary of being married. YAY! Being married has seriously been the greatest thing ever! It's so much fun! You should try it sometime in your life.
We wanted to celebrate so last night we had a date night! It was a typical sort of date night, dinner and a movie, but I absolutely HAVE TO talk about this dinner place!! It was so delicious and so much fun! So if you're in Logan, Utah, you have to check this out.
So when I saw Fiddler on the Roof, the program told me about this Kabuki place that I had never been to, and was pretty sure I'd never seen before. I don't like sushi, but it has hibachi grilling, where they cook the food in front of you. It sounded like a fun idea and they had a fairly good deal so we decided to check it out.
We got the two for $30 deal. This got us drinks, soup, salad, an appetizer or dessert and two meats with the rice and steamed vegetables. I know $30 seems a lot for a meal to college students like myself, but this place was very much worth the money.
So they started us out with our soup (so delicious), salads (best dressing ever) and our appetizer. We picked the won tons (I'm pretty sure), and I wasn't a huge fan of them. But I loved the soup and salad. Both were very delicious. The soup looked really weird because it just looked like water with some mushrooms floating in it (and I don't like mushrooms) but I gave it a try and it was super delicious!
Then he started to cook in front of us. He did all the cool tricks and he was lots of fun. Chris caught some food in his mouth, it was just a fun experience. (In the background there are a ton of photos, this is because they have a birthday club and they love to celebrate birthdays! All those photos, and more, are from birthdays. Chris and I signed up for their birthday club so we can see what kind of deals we get.)
Chris ordered beef and salmon. His plate looked like this:
And PS, those plates are huge, it may not look like a lot, but it really was.
I ordered the chicken and salmon, my plate looked like this:
Both of us absolutely loved our salmon!! It was cooked perfectly and I can't even describe how good that salmon was. It was perfect. And I've had a lot of salmon in my life, but this one possibly tops it all. (Notice how my plate is much more orderly?)
We both loved our meals! They were so delicious in every way! I highly recommend this restaurant. USU student, it makes for a great date night!! Wink wink!
We tried to take some pictures but my camera is awful in dim lighting. It only works in full daylight or night. Any in-between light and it doesn't like to cooperate. I'm kind of wanting a new camera. Anyways. So then we also got pictures outside with the sign:
And some guy offered to take our picture but the strap got caught on my wrist and my poor camera fell to the cement... it took a chip out of it and wouldn't like the guy take a picture, but it seems to be doing fine now... fingers crossed... I need it to last a while longer.
After eating we drove around and found an elementary school playground where we played on the swings. I'm obsessed with swings and could play on a swingset all day long.
When the time came we drove to the movie theater to see Despicable Me 2. So I'm absolutely in love with Despicable Me (the first one) and I could honestly watch it every day, and the second one did not live up to my expectations. It had good parts, funny parts, really entertaining parts, but as a whole, it wasn't the best movie. I was sad. I expected more from it. But it's cute and Agnes is just adorable so you have to watch it for her.
So there's a lovely date night for anyone living in Logan, Utah! Seriously check out Kabuki, it was so good and so worth the cost!
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