A late Valentine's Day recap and an Early Dating-versary post

So I'm a few days late with my Valentine's Day recap. Are you surprised? Yes? You really shouldn't be haha.

BUT I am early with my 7 year dating anniversary post which I'm really only posting because I'm getting around to my Valentine's Day post the day before it haha.

I’m not big on Valentine’s Day. Really, I’m not. And I'm not just saying that so my husband goes out and goes overboard because that's secretly what I really want. Because it is not secretly what I want. Buy me a card and write something sweet in it and take me out to dinner (or something along those lines) and I’m good.

Steve used to go above and beyond with Valentine’s Day. It’s sweet really. That he likes to show me just how much he loves me on Valentine's Day. But, honestly, our money can go to much better things than flowers that are going to die and candy when I have way too many Girl Scout cookies and ice cream in the freezer.

Steve loves me. I know that. I know it every single day of the year. Every moment of every day. I don’t need him to go and spend hundreds of dollars on cards, candy, flowers or jewelry to show me that he loves me. I’d honestly rather him spend that kind of money in…I don’t know, let’s say July. Just because. Because that’s sweeter than getting gifts because some greeting card company said today is the day to show the one you care that you really care and if you don’t tell her today she will never know.

Ok I seem to have gone off on a little tangent there. My bad.

Anyway, what I really wanted to write about was how we spend our Valentine’s Day weekend.
We had a fairly low-key, no neighbor weekend. For the first time in a long time and it was kind of nice. We did have a friend over for a couple hours Saturday afternoon, but for the most part it was just me, Steve, and The Budster. We watched some TiVo we’d been seriously neglecting. Even though we’re still kind of behind with that. I feel like we’re only ever caught up with our TiVo over Christmas and during the summer when TV’s on a break ha. We played some video games together. Which is always fun because we’re both competitors that like to win. But it was a good time.

Sunday we spent the morning being lazy. I love lazy mornings. We ran some errands around mid-day and then just came home to be lazy some more. I barely even cleaned the house this weekend. Which I might regret next weekend, but it made this weekend that much better.
We decided to go out for dinner Sunday evening rather than on Valentine’s Day because we figured crowds would be less.

I’m not sure how or why we came to that conclusion, but we did. And we were not correct.
We went to a restaurant by us called Sansui. We’ve ordered sushi from there in the past and I had been really wanting some sushi lately so we decided to go there. Apparently this restaurant is actually a hibachi place. It wasn’t really what I wanted to do for Valentine’s day, mostly because I was hoping for a dinner with just my husband, but it ended up being a really nice evening. We were seated with a family of 4 and another couple (so there were a total of 8 of us at the table). The other couple was very quiet and kept mostly to themselves. I feel like they were probably not expecting hibachi when they walked in to the restaurant either.

The family of 4 was awesome to sit with. The dad was totally like my dad. And Steve’s mom. He had 2 kids and his wife with him and he was cracking on the kids and giving us “advice” like don’t have kids and these 2 are perfect examples of why. He also offered up his kids to us. Said he’d even bring over food haha. I TOTALLY knew how the girls felt (both were HS age, so totally embarassable <-- not a real word, apparently). My dad used to do that stuff all.the.time. And every time? I thought I was going to die. It was definitely funny when you’re not on the receiving end. But we did have nice conversations with both kids and the wife. We joked back and forth and shared stories. By the end of the night we were all joking with each other.

It really turned out to be an enjoyable dinner. It was definitely a long dinner though. The wait was incredible. We got there at 5:30 and were leaving a little before 8. By the time we got home we were both ready to collapse on the couch. Which is just what we did.

Overall we had a very nice Valentine’s Day weekend. I’m so grateful that I have Steven in my life. He makes me happy, he makes me smile, he makes me laugh, and he shows me what true love is every day. I can’t imagine spending my life with anyone else by my side. I love you, baby.

Thanks for making me the happiest woman alive.

And also, since it took me all week to write this post and tomorrow is the 19th – which marks 7 years of us being a couple – thank you for giving me a wonderful 7 years with you. I can’t believe it’s been 7 years. It seems like just yesterday you were sitting with me through a lecture I didn’t even want to be in and then making me lobster ravioli. You’ve always know the way to my heart is through my stomach. I can’t wait to see what the next 7, and the 7 after that, and the 7 after that (and so on and so forth because in 21 years I’m hoping we’re both alive and kicking…you at 49 and me still a beautiful 29) bring us but I’m definitely glad I get to spend them all with you. And because I'm feeling saucy, let's take a look at Steve and Carrie through the years. Keeping in mind that all of my 2004 pictures were lost in the great laptop death of 2005.

This is May 2005. After my college graduation. It's the earliest picture I have of us (on the computer, there are some in the pages of my scrapbooks).

October 2006. We were already engaged in this picture.

December 2007. After getting our Christmas tree. Gorgeous day for that huh?

April 2008. Honeymoon. I think we're in the Grand Caymans in this picture.

November 2009. Our trip to Williamsburg.

June 2010. The day we closed on our house.

January 2011. In New York.

I feel like this turned more in to a recap of how far we've come. Really? It's a look at how much my hair has changed since 2005. I feel like we look the same, just older. It's funny to go back and see just how much you've changed physically. The one thing I'm glad that's stayed the same all these years? Our love.

Love you Steven.

A date.

My poor husband has been laid up with a slight tear in his LCL so he's in a knee imobilizer, he's on crutches, he can't drive, and I'm out of the house 4 days a week. Poor guy is going NUTS! So one day after work I had to run some errands - we needed coffee and we needed to drop his suit off at the cleaners so he came with me. I figured since we'd be running errands around dinner time that I'd take him out to dinner. We didn't do anything fancy, but it was really nice to actually get out of the house and take some time out just to sit and talk and eat and just be together. We've had a trying couple weeks and we really needed this. We ended up at Foster's Grill which is a burger joint. We had one by where we used to live and we really enjoyed it but neither one of us had been to one in a while. I'm really glad we have one by the new house because I LOVE their hot dogs. Yeah. Ok I said burger joint, but I'm a hot dog junkie so whenever I can get a good one I don't pass up the opportunity. PLUS I'm a condiment girl and ketchup, mustard, relish, and onions....YUM! Plus their fries. With vinegar....my mouth is watering just thinking about them. Steve did get a burger because he really likes them. I've never actually had a burger from there. I know, I really should and maybe next time.....but we discovered a few other things on the menu we'd like to try so who knows I may never get around to having that burger but we'll see haha.

Impromptu dates are much nicer than planned ones.

I got some money for my birthday and so at the beginning of December Steve took me out shopping. He really only came because I wanted to buy a new desk, and I knew it would be heavy, and I knew I’d need him to lift it. So being the wonderful husband that he is he comes with. I ran him all over the place spending up all my gift cards. It was great. Mostly because I wasn’t spending any of our actual money and I was getting to do some shopping for myself for the first time in a really long time.

About half-way through our trip we both were feeling a little hungry. I was figuring on heading home early to grab some food and finishing up the rest later, but then I remembered another gift card I’d gotten for my birthday. Panera. YUM! And there’s one in Winchester. So we headed over there to have a nice dinner out. For the first time in a really long time. Even though it wasn’t anything fancy it was still really nice. Part of that had something to do with the fact that we hadn’t planned on eating out and we definitely weren’t dressed for any kind of “date.” But either way, we were enjoying each other’s company. Someone else had cooked and would clean up after us. And, like my shopping adventure, it didn’t cost us anything!

We recently decided that we’d be taking more date nights. Nothing spectacular. More than likely just a night out to dinner at least once a month. I’m really hoping that this is the month Steve actually takes me to the movie that he’s been promising me he would “for my birthday.” Especially since we have this really cool movie theater by us that is a combo restaurant/theater so that will be really cool. But I have a feeling if he takes me to this movie I’m going to have to sit through one of the crappy action packed movies he picks. And I hate those movies. So maybe we’ll scratch the movie in favor of anything else haha.

Two years down, a lifetime to go.

Happy Anniversary to us!

(we do take a good looking picture #3)

I can’t believe we’ve been married 2 years already. It seems like just yesterday I was meeting him at the end of that aisle all dressed up – me in my pretty white dress and him in his tux.



Steven and I were able to take some time out of this rapidly moving year to focus on our anniversary celebration. Since our anniversary was a Monday we took advantage of the weekend and went down to Harrisonburg on Saturday after Steve’s game. We got to the hotel mid-afternoon and got unpacked(ish) and relaxed a bit and tried to figure out what we’d be doing for the rest of the night. Turns out there was something going on at the college and the town was (apparently) shutting down after dinner time. That meant no wandering around town after dinner. Bummer. We found a nice restaurant to eat at (Kyoto Japanese Steakhouse) and got ready to head to dinner (#1 – go on a date with my husband). We got there and were seated right away which was nice. The table was nearly full and another couple was sat right after us and we were full. We ordered drinks and food. We had small conversation with the couple next to us but they weren’t very chatty. And the group that made up the rest of the table was there with the group at the table next to us so they talked amongst themselves. Not a bad thing, but it did make for some awkward times. Either way Steve and I had a wonderful time. The Hibachi chef came and started our meal. Another disappointment. He seemed to rush through the cooking which didn’t lead to a very big (or fun) show that restaurants like these put on. It was still good and fun, but it could have been better. Either that or we’ve been spoiled by the hibachi places up here that put on fantastic shows! Our food was FANTASTIC! And there was so much of it. Steve cleaned his plate and while I didn’t manage to clean mine I did manage to eat all the “good stuff” haha. I left behind some rice and veggies, but my seafood and steak were devoured! We didn’t stick around very long after we had finished and paid even though we weren’t really in a hurry.

my yummy dinner. and drink. before I ate all the good stuff.

After dinner we headed to a shopping center across the street from our hotel. We needed to walk off dinner! We wandered around Bed, Bath, and Beyond. We stopped and looked at things we liked for the house. I took a couple pictures because we weren’t there to really buy anything and I didn’t really feel like having to deal with getting them home with all the rest of the stuff in the car. After BBB we headed next door to Barnes & Nobel. First stop, Starbucks. We got our coffees and wandered through the bookstore. The both of us can kill some serious time in a book store. We both ended up with 2 books and decided that was probably enough (heck we are trying to pack things up and not actually bring new clutter into the house!).After our time in B&N we headed back to the room. We were still pretty full so we were mostly bumps on a log. Steve tooled around on the computer figuring out our trip up Skyline Drive (and probably doing some baseball work knowing my husband). I plopped down in a chair and read through one of my new books. We mostly just relaxed for the rest of the night which was nice because even though we hadn’t done much we’d had a busy day.

Sunday we got up early and got ready for the day. We wanted to get a fairly early start so we could enjoy Skyline but also so we could make it to our house before we headed home while still getting home at a pretty decent time.

We decided to skip breakfast in the hotel and we headed for Bob Evans. YUMMY! We had a really awesome breakfast. Well I did, but Steve’s looked gross to me so I wouldn’t call his yummy although he enjoyed it. I enjoyed some stuffed French toast. It wasn’t exactly what I was thinking (I was thinking more IHOP version) but they were still really good. After a nice breakfast we got on the road.

We got on Skyline Drive (#61) in Elkton. Steven told me before we left that we were by no means stopping at every single overlook because it would take us forever to get off if we did that. I was perfectly ok with that because seriously how many different views of the same valley/mountain/scenery do you need to see? So we clearly stopped at the first one we came to. Then the next. Then the next. And so on and so forth. Did I mention I was not the driver? Yeah so he was stopping left and right it was so funny. (yeah baby I just made fun of you on the internet. I love you!). We did finally slow down on the stopping and sometimes we’d “drive though” but not actually get out of the car. I didn’t take pictures of each and every overlook but there were some that I took lots of pictures at.

and this is what I looked like a good portion of the day ha!

We stopped at the Harry F. Byrd Sr. Visitors Center to ask a few questions, bathroom, and look around (and I shopped.) The visitors center was nice and it even had an exhibit so we walked through that. It wasn’t huge so it didn’t take long but it was pretty neat. And, like I said, I did a little shopping. I even changed my clothes in the bathroom because we’d decided we were going on a hike to Dark Hallow Falls (which was not previously planned) so I was not dressed for a hike so I had to change so I would be more appropriately dressed. After a little bit of time at the visitors center we headed on our way to the Falls for our hike.

We got to Dark Hallow Falls and got a bag together (water, camera, chapstick. Pretty much it. I really wish I had thought ahead and brought my camelback though but my little bag did just fine.) We were informed that this hike would take about 30 minutes down to the falls and about an hour back. What. Double the time back? That did not sound right. The lady must have been mistaken. So ok, here we go. Neither one of us are completely out of shape but we aren’t the most athletic (or graceful) people in the planet but we’re determined to hike our way down the mountain to see this waterfall. We got about halfway through the hike and we realized why it would take so long to get back up. We were hiking DOWN the mountain. As in almost all the freaking way down it which meant we had to hike all the freaking way back up it. What had we gotten ourselves into? Well, no turning back now we might as well go on. So we did. And it was SO worth it.

The waterfall was so pretty and these pictures really don’t do it justice. We spent some time resting up at the bottom and really just enjoying the scenery. Then it was time to head back to the car. OMG. I don’t wanna go. My legs. They were crying already. But we made it. We stopped for photo ops (ie. breaks) along the way and I stopped a few times to grab a drink of ice cold stream water. Yeah ok you can think it’s gross all you want but it was SO good! It’s up there with drinking from a garden hose as my most favorite place to get water. Steve was pretty much against it until I made him do it. I wouldn’t say it is his new favorite way to get water, but he didn’t hate it. We successfully made it through the hike and did not die (YAY!). We enjoyed it, although next time I would like to be more prepared but it was really fun and I’m so glad we did it. We were going to do another small hike afterwards but it was like RIGHT after this hike and we decided not to push our luck.

We continued on down the drive and stopped at a few more overlooks and did a couple more drive thrus. Our last stop was at the Rock Tunnel (Mary’s Rock Tunnel I think but don’t quote me on that one). It was really cool. I took a ton of pictures but these stupid ass orange cones were in my way. I was really, really annoyed by that because I couldn’t get a good picture of this tunnel because of those cones. Either way it was cool to see. And the view there was really nice.

see those stupid cones. but it is cool right?

After that we decided it was time to head home so we got off at the Thornton Gap exit. We could have continued on and gotten off in Front Royal, but we were afraid that would take us too long and we were hungry and we wanted to go see our house so getting off was the best thing for us. Maybe next time we’ll get on at Thornton Gap and get off at Front Royal.

We made it to the house in time for Steve to talk to the builder salesman forever much to my disapproval. Then we walked down to the house to check out the progress but I’ll post about that in a separate post. After we walked through we headed home. First to my parents to pick up Buddy and then home to relax for the rest of the night.

Monday, our actual anniversary, I had to work even thought I wasn’t planning on it. But so did Steve so it’s not like we’d missed out on a day together. After work we went out to dinner (#1 – another day. Go us!) We weren’t doing anything super fancy for dinner we just were not eating dinner with his parents on our anniversary. We decided just to drive around, towards the restaurants, until we figured out what we wanted to eat. We finally settled on Mimi’s Café and it was SO good. They even had a special (you know one of those 3 courses for a fixed price deals). We normally don’t get those – well, I sometimes do but Steve usually has a hard time with them not offering what he’s in the mood for – but this time we both got something off the menu. And we only decided that after we’d already ordered an appetizer. Oh well. It was a lot of food but it was SO good and so worth it. Plus it was nice to have dinner with my husband, just the two of us.

Overall we had a wonderful anniversary. I’m glad we took the time to just get away and do something special for us.

Happy Anniversary sweetheart. I love you to the moon and back.

A date in Wonderland

I am a huge fan. I have been (im)patiently waiting for this movie to come out.

We weren't able to go see it on opening weekend (bummer). But Steven and I finally went to see it. On a date (#1). I love dates with my husband. Spring is here and so is baseball. That means less hubby time. So our date to the movies was quite nice.

And Alice in Wonderland was AWESOME. Especially in 3D. We're seeing it in IMAX (ah hem, Steven, buy tickets.). I would have seen it in IMAX this weekend, and was a little disappointed, but it is sold out for weeks. Either way we're totally going to see it.

I am a big fan of this new 3D technology. This was my first movie in Real D 3D. It is pretty amazing how they can do things. At one point I kind of (ok, I totally) moved out of the way of some flying bugs.

Back to Alice. I really enjoyed the original AIW and was very hopeful that this re-make was going to do her justice. I was slightly afraid after the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory debacle (I do not like the Johnny version AT ALL.) I'm happy to report that I was not disappointed in this version at all. Johnny was an awesome Mad Hatter. I also enjoyed the fact that it wasn't a complete re-make but more of a continuation, some years later, of the original story.

A date, floors, and a kitchen table.

On January 8th we had to go out to Martinsburg, WVA to meet with the flooring company to make our flooring selections for the new house. That was really a lot of fun, but it was kind of really hard at the same time. The samples are SO small that it is hard to determine what they will really look like when they are covering your kitchen, or bathroom, or bedroom, or whatever. We went with somewhat neutral colors throughout the house so that we don’t have a hard time picking out things like furniture or decorations for any specific room. I will say that flooring is not as expensive (or scary) as I thought it was. On our way Steve and I had discussed that we probably would not be upgrading much of anything with the exception of the tile in our bathroom because we probably couldn’t afford it.

We got there a little early so we just looked around at the different selections they offered. There are a LOT. Some of them are UGLY. I’m actually surprised that people would want some of that stuff in our home. But then again, those people might think what we picked is ugly so whatever. While we were looking we kind of had a hard time picking a floor in the “non-upgrade” category. I thought I was going to faint at the idea of upgrading everything in the house. How much would that cost!? Steve didn’t seem to care as much as I did, but that didn’t surprise me at all. We kind of make some selections but really wanted to hear how much it would cost before we really decided.

We upgraded everything but our kitchen floor. Mostly because the one we really liked was a non-upgraded floor selection and we didn’t really like the other ones. I was ok with not upgrading the kitchen/sunroom because that actually was kind of expensive. I really like how our kitchen floor, while being a laminate, looks like it is tile and since we will be having a darker cherry cabinet with a dark granite-looking (but not actually granite) countertops and black appliances we figured that a beige-ish tile would help to offset all the dark, and let’s face it a dark floor with all those other dark pieces in the room would make the room look dark and small and it’s a rather large room so I want it to look that way.

We went with an upgrade 1 for the carpet throughout the house. We will have carpet in the living room, both sets of stairs, and the entire upstairs. While we could have picked a different carpet for all of that we stuck with one color – beige – so that it would all flow together. Plus, we intend to put hardwood in the living room upstairs (and also the kitchen and sunroom another reason for free floor!). We thought about putting a non-upgrade in the living room since we’re going to replace it but since we don’t really know when we will be replacing it and the fact that I could not have two different colors in the same room (the stairs would have gotten upgrade and the living room not and we couldn’t match the colors well enough for my taste). That and the non-upgrade felt kind of scratchy and I don’t want scratchy carpet in case we don’t put in hardwood before we have babies crawling on the floor.

We did upgrade the tile in the master bathroom. One of the reasons was because it was the ONLY one we liked (without knowing it was an upgrade – we missed the big ass sticker on the board that said upgrade ha!). I’m really excited to see how the bathroom turns out because we got one of those decorative borders in the shower and around the tub and I’m so in love! (I really never thought I would say that about tile).

We had a hard time with the laminate in the other two bathrooms. We just didn’t see one we liked. That and I think we were both really stuck on the one they show in the model because we really, really liked that and it was going to be what we picked for those bathrooms we just couldn’t find it. We were telling the guy that and he just wrote down same as in model so we’ll get the floor we want!

Picking out floors took a lot longer than we thought. I mean I guess I knew it would take a while, but since we got there early and Steve and the guy chatted like they had known each other forever and kept slowing me down it seemed to take fooooooooorever. And not forever in a fun way. Forever in a hurry up I’ve lost interest and want food kind of way.

After leaving the floor place we headed to Cracker Barrel for date night (#1 – date with the husband)! That was another reason I was so impatient. I had seen a sign on the way in and decided that was dinner and it was kind of all I could think about. I had yummy chicken and dumplins – which is not my usual order but I had been thinking about them all week and they were sooooo good. Just what I wanted. And their portions are so huge that I brought some home for lunch later in the weekend! Steve tried the fried catfish and that actually turned out to be much better than I had expected. I probably won’t get it because I’ve already tried it and I will probably return to my usual order of French toast. I cannot tell you how excited I am to have a Cracker Barrel in Winchester (and also in Martinsburg). I love that place. It was also Nana’s favorite and I was really glad we went there because it was almost like she was there with us celebrating the fact that we had awesome floors for our new house.

Saturday afternoon we had to head back to Winchester to sign some papers at the model and pick up our kitchen table. We ordered one on Christmas because Roomstore was having a fantastic sale and we found an awesome table. It was convenient that we had to pick it up out there, but I wish we had planned our trip better so that we could have done the floor and the table and the model all on the same day, but such is life.

#1 - A date with the hubs

We actually made it on 2 dates :)

First, we did a little shopping and lunch date. Those are always fun things to do. We didn’t do any kind of fancy lunch we just went to Wegmans because I had never been to eat before (blasphemy I know). I did not realize what I was missing! Seriously, I know it’s just a food buffet bar and you fill up plastic containers and its nothing super spectacular but the food was good and there was such a variety. I had a really hard time choosing what I wanted to eat and some of my food ended up touching which kind of stressed me out but I made sure to separate them as soon as we sat down (and we couldn’t sit down fast enough let me tell you! The shopping was fun – I got a couple pairs of shoes (BOGO baby and poor Steve couldn’t find a pair, darn!) but he made up for it with a video game. After lunch we hit up Target and did our shopping for normal everyday things. Not as fun as the shoes, but it was Target so I enjoyed it!

Our second date was even more awesome. Why you ask? Well, we saw NEW MOON!! I was SO excited to see it and with my super awesome hubby no less. The movie came out on Friday and we were in Lancaster, PA that night and NONE of our friends could be bothered to wait for me to get home (THE NEXT FREAKING DAY!) to go with me (and yes, I’m bitter about that). Steve being the wonderful husband he is, sat down with me as soon as we got home Saturday night and watched Twilight so he’d know what was going on so that he could come see New Moon with me so I wouldn’t have to go all by myself. We were going to go see it the Sunday, but we had a couple other things going on so we never actually made it. We ended up going the day after my birthday as a little belated birthday date. It was awesome. We had lunch at Johnny Rockets and then promptly hit the movie. Steve let me sleep in that day (ok, I was drunk the night before so I would have anyway) but he got up and purchased the movie tickets so that when I got up all I would have to do was get ready and go! It was super sweet and really made my day!

#1 – Go on a date with my husband.

I know I've been slacking on my blogging this summer. I've been busy. And I can't get to my blog at work and I used to blog on lunch so that's really putting a damper on how quickly I can update...which seeing as how I haven't really updated since July means I'm really slow at this. Ah well, anyway these are little summaries of our dates from July to October. Yeah, I'm behind I know.

July Steve and I had some very yummy sushi dinner. We ordered in which was a nice treat for us because we’ve been gone so long. It was nice to have a date with my husband in my living room while we watched TV. To me it’s not where we go or what we do it’s all about being together and enjoying that quality time.

Our date for August was a wonderful Potbelly lunch. I love Potbelly. We ate there and sat in a mostly empty restaurant talking about houses and when we thought we’d be able to buy one and what we thought we needed to do to get to that point. It was not a planned conversation, but thanks to an awesome flyer on the bulletin board it board we had it. It was nice to know we’re on the same page about stuff like that.

In September we had another sushi date. We love sushi what can I say?! After my uncle died I was having a really hard time and I worked from home for about a week. One day we decided that I really needed out of the house for a bit so we had a lunch date at our favorite little sushi restaurant. It was really awesome to get out of the house for a little bit and have some sense of normalcy. Plus a date with my wonderful husband is always good!

In October we decided, on a whim, to head out to dinner one friday night. Not sure where we were headed we kind of just drove in the direction of restaurants and figured we'd make up our mind as we got closer. We settled on Longhorns and it did not disapoint. We started our meal with some yummy margaritas and shrimp and lobster dip. Both very yummy. Steve had a bacon wrapped three cheese filet and I finally decided, after much debate, to enjoy some shrimp skewers. I am so glad I decided on those because they were delish!