morning date

The engagement anniversary surprises continued!

Saturday morning Dave woke me up at 3am and put me in the car.  We drove to the park near our house and laid on the car to see the meteor shower!  Unfortunately, I didn't see any of them, but Dave saw 3!  We stayed for about half an hour, then drove home and went to bed.  At 6:30 Dave woke me up again!  This time he told me to get on jeans and to meet him downstairs at 7.  Then he left.  When he came back to the house at 7 we grabbed coffee in to-go mugs and got in the car.  We headed to the park again, but this time there was something different waiting for us!

Dave had borrowed our brother-in-law's canoe!  We went for a brief morning ride!

A short way into it Dave asked, "What's that over there?"

There were notes hanging on the bank!  We rowed over and cut them off.

One envelope with something Dave loves about me, one with a present, and one with a "remember when" story about our relationship!  Throughout the ride there were five stops for cards!

We paddled down the river for a little, collected cards, then rowed home.

It was a perfect morning.

I am so grateful for my husband, who let's me know daily that he loves me, in small ways, in large gestures, in words, in actions.  I am so blessed.

engagement

Yesterday Dave brought me home some pretty wildflowers.

We got engaged 2 years ago today(August 14, 2008), but we celebrated at date night last night!

Around 5 Dave told me he was taking me out to dinner.

We went to Kelly Jae's Cafe!  This is one of my favorite places!  We started with the arugula salad with mango, avocado, sunflower seeds, feta, and lemon vinaigrette.  And for dinner we split the macaroni and cheese and the seared salmon.  It was awesomeness, as usual!

After dinner Dave kept with the ice cream/engagement tradition:

Oh amazingness.

Here we were on the night we got engaged:

(Anyone else think this looks nothing like us now?)  After he proposed, Dave brought me up on a roof where we could eat ice cream and watch the sunset (collective "awwww").  You'd think he would have brought out the ice cream before asking me to marry him, just to make sure I would say yes, but he was confident I guess.

Before the rooftop we were over at the church, where Dave had decorated the stage with Christmas lights.

Three of his friends were there, too, and they played while Dave sang me a song he wrote for me.

I was surprised.  Well, I kind of had an idea when I saw the decorated stage, but prior to that I was unsuspecting.  Well played, Dave.

Dave and I blew past our regular bedtime last night in order to welcome in a few visitors:

It's Girls' weekend!  We have a big day planned today - a morning run for Rachel and I, adventuring around Shipshewana, and painting a bedroom!

color me pretty

Today's long run went short.  Around mile 10 I hit a major wall and all my energy ran out.  It wasn't just mentally tired or physically tired - I actually felt sleepy.  I checked in with myself before calling a stop, but decided that if I kept going I was probably going to be doing more walking than running, and since my day was already shaping up to be a busy one I should just head home and feel better about productivity if I couldn't feel better about running.  So I got in 11 miles.  I'll try to fit in the 17 elsewhere, or maybe just swap with next weekend.

I came home and made myself a green smoothie to re-energize... except I didn't have any spinach, so I used cabbage, a baby cucumber, a frozen banana, strawberries, and some yogurt I made (that for whatever reason this time didn't set up and stayed rather liquidy).

 It actually turned out pretty decent, although not quite as good as spinach.

Although about 2/3 of the way through it started getting a bizarre almost peppery taste?  My tongue was tingling.  I'll admit: I didn't finish it.

So while I was concocting sketchy drinks in the kitchen, Dave was up hanging out on the roof, cleaning gutters.

Do you like his hot blue gloves?  We picked those up at Lowe's.  But the gutters are clear now, except for the very top portion of the roof, which is too slanted to go out on.

And lastly we picked some paint colors for the house, with the help of Dave's sister, Julie.  She was so helpful in affirming our color ideas, helping us think through complementing paints, etc.  And now we have the colors we'll be working with!  (Not pictured: a silvery gray for Dave's office.)

I love the names of paint.  These are baja, chamois tan, sliced cucumber, mild mint, and crepe.  And really, none of the colors look that way in real life.  Thanks, camera!

I'm off to sweeper something... because I can!

Check out my first ever guest post over at Amanda's blog, Run To The Finish!

eureka!

Today started out nicely.  Laundry got hung on the line to dry,

chocolate chip workout bars were made,

and beans and lentils set to soakin'.

I had just settled out on the balcony to read for a bit (and get some sun) when I saw it.  The UPS truck.  "It's HERE!" I screamed to Dave as I scrambled downstairs.

Oh my word.  My very own sweeper!  I tore into the box.

I made sure to grab all the pieces.

Joy joy joy joy joy!

 I have an attachment for the stairs called The Power Claw.

Actually, for being a silly name it really does work well.

I sweepered the whole house, immediately.  Oh, how it needed it.  We think/hope it got sweepered before we moved in, but that was 2.5 weeks ago.  Add in moving dust, open windows, and a cat that is a notorious litter tracker (those cute six toes are total litter traps) and you have some filthy floors.  All that grittiness got sucked right up!  And now when my parents come this weekend my dad won't die of allergies.  Hooray!

Dave, for his part, patiently set aside his package so the sweepering could happen.

A 3 pack of electric weedwacker, blower, and hedge trimmer.  It's like we're grownups!

Tonight's date night... can this day get any better?

raindrops on roses...

A few of my favorite things:

We have internet!

We have been attempting this for about a week, but were having issues with the phone line.  We got the line tagged yesterday and Dave did all the configuring and set up!  Wheeeee!

The dishwasher:

I have never minded washing dishes - it's kind of relaxing to me.  Your hands are warm, you have time to think, and it's satisfying to see the end result of sparkly clean dishes.  When we were looking at houses I told Dave that a dishwasher was not a "must" on my list.  But having a dishwasher is awesome.  I don't care if a recipe dirties a lot stuff during preparation and we can have lots of people over without dishes being a big deal.  And I still get to do some dishes - our pots aren't dishwasher safe and goodness knows the one pot we use for popcorn gets a lot of use...

Our new (to us) bedroom set:

We bought some beautiful antiques from our former landlady, and I love this piece - the swiveling mirrors, the sweet little doors, the beautiful wood.  Eventually I'm going to recover the stool with fabric, but I have to wait until we figure out exactly what color our bedroom will be.  (We have a bed and bedside table to match this set.  Yay!)

The weather report for today:

9 am 57°F Feels Like 57°F

12 pm 68°F Feels Like 68°F

3 pm 72°F Feels Like 72°F

6 pm 72°F Feels Like 72°F

9 pm 65°F Feels Like 65°F

12 am 56°F Feels Like 56°F

Are you kidding me?  GLORIOUS.  I'm saving up my run for the afternoon, when I can enjoy a sun-run without the accompanying heat stroke.

You knew these two would be on the list, right?

They really should be on the very top of the list.  Every single time.

Dave's day

Friday night we drove to Fort Wayne to stay with my aunt and uncle.  We had a very important mission for Saturday: Dave's first racquetball tournament!

Saturday morning Dave woke up ready to go!

The tourney started at 8am but Dave didn't play until 11.  He had some time to warm up on his own.

He was ready.

Around 11 Dave started playing... and kept playing on and off until almost 7pm!  He played 8 matches against different guys, 2 games each match.  That's a lot of racquetball!

I had fun hanging out with the guys and talking to them.  My aunt and uncle came for a bit of it, too, to watch Dave play.  We took a quick lunch break at Subway together.

In the late afternoon I left Dave for a bit to hit up the hospital.  Someone else was in town that I was very excited to see!

 Mylin Hadassah Draper, born June 25.  A precious and sweet peanut!

Oh, little Mylin, I am excited for all the time we will have together!

After racquetball we hung out with my aunt and uncle for the night and this morning, watching World Cup and Wimbledon and talking.  Aunt Penny took us for a tour of her garden to help us get ideas for our currently colorless yard.

Today we're hitting up a running store to find new shoes for Dave.  He needs new ones and he's never had his gait or feet analyzed to know what would be best suited for him, so we're planning on going to Three Rivers Running store to get him fitted.  Then it's home to Mosie!

What have you been up to this weekend?

pizza pie!

Dave and I are becoming excellent yardworkers.  Yesterday we spent a couple hours over at Jeremy and Erin's (Talia's parents!) helping them chop up their tree that got felled in the storm.  And by "tree" I mean a seven-foot-around-the-base behemoth.  That sucker was BIG.  Luckily their house was fine, but their fence got torn up and their backyard was pretty much one giant tree fort (which was actually kind of awesome).  Apparently a funnel cloud passed over their house, causing the damage.  I ran on the block behind their house this morning and I'm pretty sure every house on the block had at least one tree down in their yard.  It was crazy!!!

Oh and my run this morning?  Glorious!  We slept on a mattress last night!  WOOHOO!  I got in just under 16 miles, which puts me right back on track for marathon training.  Yes!

The mattress came about because Dave and I finally have some furniture!  Our former landlady ended up selling us some of her beautiful antiques!  We're so excited to have the gorgeous pieces in our home.  I'll post pictures when I have them all cleaned up and rooms more assembled.  Wait for it!  The mattress Dave and I are using actually goes to the guest bed.  We're going to be buying our own mattress in the future - when we have time to get to a store to try some out!

After the yardwork and before our late-night furniture loading we had pizza pie!  I had some leftover tomato sauce in the fridge to use up and came up with a deep dish pizza pie.  I made a scone wheat crust and pressed it into a casserole dish

then made a filling of kidney beans, tomato sauce, spices, onion, and garlic.  

Covered it with cheese and baked it!  Delicious!

 And finished it off with peanut butter granola and chocolate chips.

 We're still working on getting internet at the house set up, so we're at the library again!  Heading home for leftovers soon, then heading to Fort Wayne.  Tomorrow is a surprise - but it's something fun and it's about Dave!