Showing posts with label date. Show all posts
Showing posts with label date. Show all posts

2/17/14

be mine

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Ryan and I went on a mid-morning date over the weekend. We dropped Ralph off at my sister's house, scooted away when he wasn't looking, and drove off just the two of us. It's only the third or fourth time Ralph has been alone without either of us around, and of course I cried a little bit over it, because I'm a big old sentimental wuss. I kept saying, What if he starts to look for me and I'm not there? And Ryan was like, Cool it woman, this is supposed to be fun.

We got brunch at a little place that reminded me of the cute bagel shop I worked at in high school. We sat at a small table decorated with flowers and stringed lights by the front window, and sipped coffee from mismatched mugs. Ryan ordered a french toast sandwich with ham and honey nut cream cheese-- the absolute last thing off the menu I would have expected him to choose-- which, I guess, proves that I don't know as much about the man as I thought. Ham and honey nut cream cheese? Total curve ball, Ryan. Who are you?

After brunch we took a drive down by the lake, the old standby in times of romance. We decided to walk down to the beach, but ended up just running around like fools because it was windy and freezing. Ryan got too close to the churning, icy waters and I scolded him from a safe distance because, though he might switch things up a bit here and there, I'll always be set in my wussy ways. I finally coaxed him back and trapped him into taking some pictures with me. There's totally one of us kissing, but I'll spare you that shot.

When our fingers and toes were nice and numb we headed back to the car, drove through downtown and back to our baby. He hardly missed us, as far as I could tell.

And, I don't know. We had our fun, but I'll always like it best when the three of us are together.

12/3/11

Christmas in the Ward








On our second date of Advent, we saw the tree lighting in the Third Ward.
Also spotted: Santa, two reindeer, Ronald McDonald?, and a really cute wiener dog.

12/2/11

on the first date of advent







we turned on national lampoon's christmas vacation
unwrapped some candy canes
and trimmed that tree!

(we also got panda express take out, 
but i don't think that qualifies as a christmas themed activity. 
still delicious.)

12/1/11

advent!


Last year's Christmas season was such a bust. Between my soul-sucking, time consuming job and . . . well, that's really the only thing that kept us from soaking up the Christmas spirit all December long. It wasn't until I had a few days off right before Christmas that we were able to deck the halls and trim the tree and all that stuff. I remember Ryan gathered all of my favorite Christmas movies and let me play them all day long, one after the other, while we bustled around wrapping gifts and hanging stockings. It was actually pretty cozy. We stuffed a whole lot of jolly into those few days. However. The Martha in me was so desperately sad. There was no time for homemade cocoa! Or quiet evenings gazing at the tree after Advent services! Or pom pom garlands!

Not this year. This year, it's going to be a whole month of jolly.

And so.

I'm hanging garland from just about every surface, and baking the cookies, and doing everything I can to make the season bright. I mean, we've got 3 Advent calendars. Two of them involve chocolate. But the big one provides one Christmas-y activity each day. We're soaking it up big time this year, and it's going to be grand.

11/13/11

a date at the museum

Edgar Degas, Three Dancers in Yellow Skirts

For the past month, these terribly beautiful commercials have been appearing on TV featuring the MAM's new exhibit, Impressionism: Masterworks on Paper. It plays Clair de Lune the whole time, and I feel fancy just watching it. I had been wanting and wishing (and hinting) to go, but I knew Ryan wouldn't be crazy about the ticket price. That is, until the stars aligned and the heavens opened and I was moved to check the website for more information. Free on the first Thursday of the month? Open until 8pm? Well, golly.

When Ryan got home from work last Thursday, we walked to the museum and spent a glorious two hours there. Oh it was fantastic. I forgot how much I really love the Impressionist artists. Cezanne! Van Gogh! Renoir! And that Degas, he really is something. I was able to get my nose up in those pieces and study them, which I'm sure was terribly impolite to the other museum goers. Seeing them in person allowed me to notice things that I never did in books or on the screen in class -- some of the works were done on what looked like brown paper bags, and even cardboard! And they were beautiful! I was reminded of gesture drawing. My fingers itched to dig out my charcoal and pastels. It felt good. The best part was that with all of this art class knowledge flooding back into my brains, I was able to impress Ryan with some truly fantastic facts:

Ryan: "This piece was done in gouache. How do you say that? Gowsh?"
Me: "No, darling. It's pronounced gwash."

Right?? I wasn't an art major for nothing.

We weren't able to take pictures in the exhibit, but it was allowed in the other parts of the museum. While I admired the paintings and drawings, engineer Ryan inspected the architecture. It really is such a beautiful museum.