January Date Night

This year for Christmas, I wanted to give Aaron something meaningful and something he wouldn't expect.  I love spending time alone with him and wanted to incorporate that fact into the gift.  I thought about planning a trip.  We love vacationing together, but I wanted something a little bit more personal that would last the entire year.  I finally came up with the idea of pre-planning 12 dates nights (one a month) for an entire year.  I searched the internet and found lots of great ideas.  I narrowed it down to the twelve I liked and set about putting each date together.  I bought gift cards, made instructions sheets, created individual envelopes, scheduled the date nights on the calendar, and put everything together so all we had to do was pull the month's envelope and enjoy our time together.  This was definitely a labor of love and Aaron was actually surprised when he opened this present on Christmas day.

When Aaron opened up January's envelope this is what was inside:

We called up our friends, the Graham's and the Collotzi's, and invited them to go with us.  After all, bowling is much more fun with friends.  

We had a great dinner at Italian Village.  But then again, what's not to love about pizza benders and garlic bread?

And then headed to the bowling alley where we had fun bowling with the M&M's rules.  These rules included bowling backwards, bowling with an opposite hand, kicking the ball, granny style, and date bowl for you.  We had a lot of fun but our scores were very sad!  About halfway through, we threw out the M&M's rules and bowled normally.

Jeremy and Randi Graham

Chad and Celena Collotzi

Who won the 15 minute massage?  No one, we had to quit early to make it home by curfew.  We all had a great evening.  Can't wait until February to see what's planned next.

Behind the Myths Tour

Adam is a fanatic when it comes to Mythbusters.  He LOVES the show!  He recordes every episode and enjoys watching them as the bust myths.  So, when I got an email early in December letting me know they were coming to Utah in "concert" I knew it would be the perfect Christmas gift for Adam.  He was so excited when he opened up the present containing the tickets.  He had no idea!

Adam and I went together to the show.  It was a great date!  We went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner and then made our way up to the show.  It was a lot of fun!  They did several experiments and even called some of the audience members up on stage.

 They demonstrated how you can lie on a bed of nails without being stuck.  It had something to do with surface area.  They even cracked the cinder block on Adam Hyneman.

Using two ordinary phone books, with pages interlaced, they were able to lift Adam.  That was impressive!

Here are their Mini-me's.  This was hilarious!  They had audience members come up and do an obstacle course using the peephole out of a door.  They had to end up delivering a tray of milk to Adam and Jamie.  In the end, they quickly brought out these two to replace them.

This was Adam's favorite.  They brought out an audience member dressed in a suit of armor and proceeded to blast him with paint balls.

Snow Day at Wolf Mountain

Since the kids were out of school in January this year, Aaron and I decided to book the condo in Eden, UT and take our kids skiing at Wolf Mountain.  Aaron is great skier and Adam has gone snowboarding a few times last year, but, Abbi, Alex, and I had never been.  I know, you grow up in Utah and you are expected to ski "The Greatest Snow On earth."  But, I had never been, except the time before we were married and Aaron took me up to Park City.  I went down twice and called it good.  Anyway, we took the kids to Wolf Mountain and signed them all up for ski lessons;  even me!

Adam was a natural, before I knew it, the instructor had him up the lift and going down the bunny hill.  He is pretty impressive!

What a stud!

Alex and Abbi did a great job also.  After two days of lessons, they too were heading up the lift and cruising down the bunny hill.  They couldn't get enough of it.  It was so fun to watch them ski down the hill.  I, on the other hand, did not take to skiing as well.  After my lesson, Aaron convinced me to go down the bunny hill.  It freaked me out.  I basically came down the hill on my butt.  After that, I took off my skis and sat in the lodge for the rest of the afternoon.  Aaron still has hopes of getting me to be a ski bunny, but honestly, I enjoyed sitting in the lodge reading my book.  Maybe some day, but today was not that day!

This little getaway was so much fun!  It was so relaxing and we all enjoyed spending time together.  The kids didn't fight and they loved skiing!  They can't wait to go again!