Dave & Darah Day!

This past Wednesday, Dave and I enjoyed another official "Dave & Darah Day"!  No worries; we did it "legally" and asked for the day off in advance.  :o)

The first Dave and Darah Day was at the end of March 2010.  We were dating and cleared our schedules one Saturday in order to spend the day together, just the two of us.  We chose to go to Helen, GA and enjoy the beautiful "mountains" and scenery there.  One of my favorite parts was the waterfall we found to hike to.  After we got to the waterfall, there was a wooden platform/walkway that we stood at and enjoyed the peacefulness together.  It was beautiful!  And, so way fun to be there together!

One of the beautiful views

My first kissing picture!  ;o)

While we were walking around one of the touristy sections of Helen, we went into a gift shop and Dave searched it 'til he found the charms.  He told me to pick one out while he talked to the owner of the shop about getting a charm bracelet for me.  I told him he didn't have to, etc. but I soon learned that his dad gave his mom a charm bracelet years and years ago.  Whenever they go somewhere new together, she finds a charm to add to it.  It makes a cool memento!

Dave wanted to me to have one, too!  How sweet is that?!?  So, I chose a cute little pine cone charm, signifying the pine cones we saw (and kicked around) during our walks on the trails to and from the waterfalls.

That was also the day that we unofficially got engaged.  :o)  On our way back into town at the end of the day, we looked at engagement rings at a couple of jewelry stores.  What a fun way to end a fabulous day!

Anyway, on to the 2nd Dave & Darah Day!

This is what the skies looked like as we drove into Atlanta that morning...

It was gloomy and cold outside.  However, there was plenty of figurative sunshine because Dave and I had tons of fun being together!

Dave had never been to the GA Aquarium, which surprised me, but he just never had.  So, we got tickets and planned to spend our morning there.  In researching tickets, I discovered that the aquarium has a dolphin show now.  I've never seen one of those, which Dave was surprised about, so we paid extra to see the dolphin show.  It was not like a "typical" dolphin show; it had theatrics, complete with actors and singing and audience singing, etc. which made it slightly weird.  (Honestly, the dolphins are pretty cool by themselves and don't need all the dramatics to make them so way exciting to watch!)  Good thing we didn't know about all that before we got there or it might have been hard to convince Dave to see it.  lol

At the very beginning, are one of my all-time favorites:  the jellyfish!  They are so way awesome-looking!  This is the best picture I could get of them.

While at the aquarium, I took several videos since I couldn't get my camera to take very good pictures.  This first one is of the lion fish, I believe.  It's one of the oddest-looking fish I've ever seen.

One of my favorites at the aquarium is the beluga whales.  I love the beluga whales because Tamara and I used to sing the "Baby Beluga" song that Raffi would sing ever since she could talk/sing.  (Does anyone else remember Raffi??)  So, I was excited to get video of the belugas.  It ended up being more exciting than I thought!

Yeah....  Don't think there's more to say about that one!

Another favorite is the penguins.  Jen loves penguins, so I thought of her while getting them on video.  Aren't they cute?!

The last video I took was of the octopus moving.  Normally when you go to the aquarium (or so it seems), the octopus is always just sitting there.  Rather boring-like.  When we walked up to his tank, however, he was moving and kept moving the entire time we were standing there watching!  Pretty neat to watch all those suction cup thingys on his tentacles do their jobs.  Fun stuff!

We stopped by the gift shop on our way out (oh wait.  They MAKE you walk through in order to get out.  ;o) and found a dolphin charm to add to the other charms on my bracelet.  Awesome!

We went and had lunch and then went home and ended up taking a 2 1/2 hour nap while trying to get rid of the headaches we both had.  :o(  Didn't plan on napping that long, but at least we were doing it together, right?  lol  For dinner, we ate popcorn while watching a scary movie cuddled on the couch.  What a fun way to end a great day with my handsome man!

Can't wait for the next Dave & Darah Day!!!!

Extreme Makeover: Aquarium Edition

Yesterday, Dave and I renovated our big fish tank.  We got rid of The House of Death (it's where Crush hid before she died....) and replaced it with a cool, considerably larger house.  I took a video of it to show why Dave rated it a 10 out of 10 for coolness factor:  air bubbles move the wheel and bubbles come out of the chimney.  :o)  Dave has been eyeing this "accessory" ever since we went to PetSmart for the first time months and months ago.

It looks ginormous in the tank!  lol  I think we are done adding things to it.  Otherwise, there will be no room for the fishies!

FYI.  The long, black thing on the back of the tank at the right is part of the filter.  The shorter, black thing to the left of that is a heater.  It's gotten colder at nights and our fish were getting to cold.  It was scary because we thought they were going to die.  Now, they are much happier!

Oh, and we moved two of the baby fish over to the big tank to see if they would get eaten or not. They've been there since Friday night and there have been no issues, so that's wonderful!  The baby fish were starting to nip at each other, so we are trying to see if they just needed more room.  They are getting larger and maybe need to be in a bigger tank if there are that many of them.  We shall see!

Anyways, we are happy with the look of our renovated 10-gallon tank.  :o)  And we sure do love our fish, or as I lovingly refer to them, our fish babies!  All 16 of them!!!

Super Saturday

Look what I made!

Aren't I crafty?!  lol

Oh, and I did NOT make the bow.  You could say I am bow-challenged...  I will not tell you how long I TRIED to make the bows.  Pretty embarrasing... 

But, my talents lie elsewhere!

P.S.  That's the Atlanta Temple.  :o)

It's the Simple Things in Life...

...that make Dave happy.  :o)

This is the newest addition to the Wheeler household.

This is one of 2 small helicopters that Dave recently acquired.  He flew the first one (the one shown in the video) into our living room ceiling fan (that of course was on) a few seconds into the 2nd time he played with it.  Not a fun moment!  He ordered the parts to fix it last week and has been anxiously awaiting the arrival of the package ever since.  Every day for the past week it's been, "I hope my helicopter parts get here today..."  And today when we pulled up in the driveway after work, sitting on our porch was the box Dave has been waiting to see for days.  :o)  His excitement (well, it really was manly giddiness) was cute to watch.

He was able to get it fixed this evening and I have been "enjoying" the gentle whir/hum of the copter ever since.  :o)

The 2nd helicopter he ordered came broken; he knew that, though, and was sure he could fix it.  Right he was because that one is flying around our living room as I type this.  He's amazing!  And such a kid at heart!  I love to see it!!!

Look!  His and hers helicopters!  ;o)

Dave has been repeating over and over, "These little guys are so awesome!"  :o)

My "Romantic" Husband

On the way to work this morning, we were listening to a radio station that played an ad for Publix, an awesome grocery store (for all my non-Southern friends ;o).  In the ad, a husband goes up to one of the Publix employees and asks for help in creating a menu for a romantic dinner he wants to make for his wife.

At the possibility of a lovey-dovey moment with Dave, I lovingly asked, "So, what would be on the menu if you were to make me a romantic dinner?"

His response:  "Ummm....  Grilled cheese.  And....  Popcorn?"

Seeing as how there is so much romance in that response there's not even room for a candle-lit table set for two, I only hope he was joking.  lol

;o)

Thank goodness he knows how to be romantic in other ways!

For reals?

So, I was making waffles for dinner tonight and noticed this message on the Bisquick box:

Does anyone else refrigerate their Bisquick after opening??

I will NOT be defeated!!!

One of Dave's favorite meals is country fried steak with mashed potatoes and white, country gravy.  He orders it at restaurants that have it (like Cracker Barrel and Ihop) and I found some in the frozen food section at the grocery store that you just throw on a cookie sheet and bake.  Easy.  And Dave likes them.  :o)

Someone at work was eating a homemade country fried steak the other day and I thought, "If his girlfriend can do it, why can't I?!?"  I was researching some recipes online and then it just so happened that the Publix ad last week had a recipe for country fried steak.  No way!  Even better, half of the ingredients were on sale at Publix last week.  Perfect!  I could tell this homemade country fried steak thing was so way meant to be!

So, I decided to make it on Sunday.  This past Sunday.  With recipe in hand and ingredients within reach, I set out to make my husband the meal of his dreams!

Things were going so well, even considering all my efforts to coat the steaks in all three coating mixtures were unsuccessful and required getting my fingers pretty messy.  Eewww!  The things I do for the man I love.  ;o)

I put the first two steaks in the pan and they cooked away while I coated the remaining two steaks.  I must've had the pan too hot because I turned around to turn the steaks in the pan over and they were BURNT.  Like, no saving them burnt.  Everything smelled burnt.  The pan had to be washed before I could cook anything else in it.  Darn it!!!  So, two steaks down.  Two more left.

I looked at the recipe again and decided that when they said to cook the steaks over medium heat, they did not mean medium-but-nearly-high heat....  Oops...  My bad.

I tried again.  This time over MEDIUM heat.  It worked wonderfully!!!  I'm pretty paranoid about meat getting all the way cooked but it was hard to check these steaks.  So, I cooked them for slightly longer than the recipe said without burning them and figured there's always the microwave if necessary.  lol

As the steaks were in their last few minutes of cooking, I started some mashed potatoes.  We use the Idahoan brand of potato flakes.  Yummy!  I went to dump the pouch of potatoes into the microwave-safe bowl and somehow all the flakes ended up on my kitchen floor.  Argh!!!  After all the mess with the steaks and the burnt steaks, etc, dumping the potatoes was the last straw and I was near tears...  Thankfully we had more potatoes, so all was not lost.  It was just frustrating.

I don't normally have issues like that while cooking!!!  Oh well....  I guess it was to keep me humble.  I must say, though, I am so way trying this homemade meal again (maybe even making homemade mashed potatoes, too!).  And I will not burn the steaks!  And I will not dump potatoes on the floor!  And it will be the most perfectly yummy country fried steak meal my handsome husband has ever eaten in his entire life!

Our inexpensive, yet amazing, date night!

It has taken me FOREVER to blog this... And, I forgot to take my camera, so there are no pictures...  :o(  However, we still had a so way enjoyable time together!

A few weeks ago, Dave and I left work a tad early so we could make our reservations at The Melting Pot.  I have mostly only been there with my family, so 6 or more people.  It was fun to go just Dave and I, for once.

When we got there, they led us to a cozy little booth in this quiet little alcove.  It was nice.  :o)  I was most excited for the cheese and salad courses!  We got the spinach artichoke fondue and it was yummy, yummy, yummy!!!  I love their house salad dressing, so the salad was yummy to!  We were able to exchange all the fish that came with the entree for more steak, which Dave loved.  lol

This date made me want to use the wedding gift that has only been pulled out and used one time in our year and a half of marriage and now resides on top of our fridge.  I need to find some good fondue recipes, though!

When making our reservations, I didn't think about the fact that the food would cook faster with only 2 people's skewer thingys in the pot instead of 6. lol  So, we got finished with dinner A LOT faster than I had thought.  Like, a whole HOUR early.  Dave was like, so what are we going to do?!  We drove to the theatre and sat in the car in the parking deck listening to scriptures and then music on my iPod. 

Dave and I were excited to see "Into the Woods"!  It's a story that combines some stories:  Rapunzel, Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, etc.  The music is wonderful!!!  The cast and crew and The Alliance Theatre did a wonderful job!  A few of the cast members did better than the cast that is on my CD.  :o)

On the way home, Dave and I rocked out to music on my iPod.  It was a fun ride home with my handsome husband who is a walking mp3 player.  lol  He knows so many song lyrics it's crazy!

All in all, it was a super fun evening with my handsome man!  And, a huge thank you to my parents for giving us the tickets to see "Into the Woods"!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!  I'm also grateful I was able to get a $50 Melting Pot gift card for $20.  Made the date even more enjoyable!  lol