V.I.P. Date Night

Last year on my birthday I signed up for a monthly coupon at one of my fave restaurants:  The Happy Sumo.

Its a coupon for V.I.P.'s.  That's how we roll.

So, we've made it a tradition for one of our date nights each month to be "sushi night" at the Gateway - we get everything for 1/2-price, so we try expensive rolls that we'd never normally spring for.

Its pretty awesome.

This is what our latest V.I.P. sushi date night in August looked like:

Power nap on the FrontRunner.

Guarding/Attacking my sushi.

The Diva Roll is my favorite.

Richard wasn't surprised by that.

He gets a little carried away when he's hungry.

Walked to Pioneer Park to see She and Him in the Twilight Concert Series.

Loved it.

Cheap dinner.

Free concert.

Perfect date.

What do your date nights look like?

the COUGARS are out!

Let's just get one thing straight:  I am, and always will be a Utah girl.  I bleed red.  Not purple.  And certainly not blue.  In fact, my dad and I were just talking the other day about how we wish we could be better people and cheer for BYU when they're not playing the U, but we just can't bring ourselves to do it.  I did however bring myself to venture down to Happy Valley, and hellish P-Town, to attend the "Lord's University" for Education Week with my mom last week for a couple days of spiritual enlightenment.  She heads down every year with a group of fabulous ladies (the cougars to which I referred in the title of this post) to fill up her spiritual tank, and this year they invited me to tag along.  Lucky, huh?!  I really am soooo glad I went!  Not only did I get to survive on junk food for two days, but I think I came back up north with a greater conviction to be the best woman/wife/sister/daughter/friend/adventurer I can be.  My favorite classes were the ones on marriage, and one on setting life goals according to the errand the Lord has for us.  I learned a lot, and my notes pretty much wrote the talk I had to give in Sacrament Meeting in our ward the following Sunday, HA!  Win - Win I'd say.  Plus, I got to spend some quality time with mi madre.  I love her dearly, and I'm beyond getting to that point in my life where I've realized she really does know what she's talking about, and I just respect her opinion and advice more than ever.  She's a modern marvel, really.  I want to be just like her when I grow up...I'll even take the crazy babble that comes with that (wink).

Traditional Brick Oven dinner - where the cougs loaded up on Diet Coke in order to stay awake for our temple session HA!

Hair greased to our heads & so ready for bed after the last temple session of the night.

But not before we closed the night out with some ice cream.

Joking around before our last class.

Love you, Mom!

Can't wait for next year.

Think they'd consider moving things up to SLC?

just LOVING summer lovin'!

This summer has been busy busy busy, and I hate to see it winding down.

Although I've felt like a crazy person trying to do everything that we've planned,

I'm just loving the summer lovin' going on in my life!

Here are a few snapshots of parts of our summer, that for some reason hadn't made it onto the blog yet:

Our street (Gramercy Ave.) has a little party called Gramercy Gab every Monday night - all the neighbors get together and play - this particular week we had a Karaoke party. 

It was stellar.

Here I am singing Summer Nights from Grease with my friend/landlord Heather.

Rich & Chuck singing Love Shack - it was like they'd never heard the song before in their lives HA!

We kidnapped Tyson (Richard's little bro) from their parents and brought him back up to stay with us for about 2 1/2 weeks.  Love the kid, but it's never happening again...or at least until we get a place with at least 2 bedrooms.  I need my fix of Matt, Meredith, Ann and Al in the mornings, and that just doesn't happen with a teenager sleeping on your couch.

Richard & Scott were feeling some hair envy and made Tyson shave his head with them.

Here we are, coming just around the river bend on the log flume at Lagoon.

We used some "free" passes we got when we bought our new car to spend the day with some of our BFF's, the Bates!

Welcome to Rattle Snake Rapids. 

And a trip to Pei Wei to close out the night...yummmmm!

Our friends from AZ, the Haws, finally decided to cash in on all the time we owe them for letting us crash at their house.  And its a good thing because it had been waaaay too long since we'd seen them!  We got to meet their new little heartbreaker, Brighton, and play with our favorite kids in the world, Annie & Jensen.  Plus, we like hanging out with Tyson & Kim, too.  Rich and Tyson were in the same mission in Chile, and now we're all friends for life!

Introduced Tyson to sushi at the Happy Sumo.

Went bowling for the very first time ever as a couple - funny that it only took us this long!

Celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary!!!

Richard got me a skillet, zester, new scissors (kind of a joke, but we really needed them ha!), and took me to dinner & a movie - Eclipse.  You know your husband really loves you when he'll take you to see such a ridiculous movie (that I've been dying to see, especially since all my friends/family/acquaintances had gone without me!) and buy you a bag of Pretzel M&M's to enjoy while you watch.

True love.

Did I mention I chopped all my hair off?

Short.  Fun.  Easy. 

Love it.

And I love this guy, too.

Summer's not over yet, and we're trying to squeeze every bit of fun & lovin' in while we can.

Go make the most of what summer there is left!

You know we are.

and many more...

Can you believe this guy is 27 today?!

I know, me neither.  Still so young at heart.

And so dang good lookin'!

Happy Birthday, Richard!

I LOVE YOU