march dating

This has been a great month!  For one thing, we've actually gotten rain here.  In fact, we've gotten more than rain.  We got hail twice in one week!  It's pretty rare out here, so it was fun to watch.

Remnants of a hail storm.

We lost power right before one of the hail storms, but the whole thing made us laugh.  It wasn't rainy or windy yet, and there was still sunshine.  Then, we hear one crack of thunder, and the power goes out.  Apparently it doesn't take much.

Steak Out - by Kristin
We enjoyed going on our dates this past month.  I planned a "Steak Out" for Nathan - we went "out" and ate "steak"!  We went to Logan's Roadhouse to eat a full steak dinner.

Nathan's massive meal.

My not-so-massive meal.

The food was good, but the conversation was even better.  The theme for the date was "encouragement," so we had a great discussion about how I can best encourage Nathan.  We talked about where he recognized my encouragement, where he felt I was being critical, and what areas of his life he needed most encouraging in.  The conversation was really affirming for both of us, and I think that the biggest thing I got out of it was learning what types of encouragement mean the most to him.  I'm more confident about putting on my "cheerleading outfit" now.  I love my husband!

Indoor Picnic - by Nathan

As usual, my plans can never seem to come together quite right.  I planned this date for a day when Kristin would be getting home late from class so that I would have plenty of time to make dinner and get the living room set up for a picnic.  Then the week before our date, I realized that Kristin's class was ending, and I'd planned our date during her spring break, so she would be home all day.  In the end, I just had to send her away for a couple hours.  She went to Starbucks and read about the Holocaust... so romantic to get a date started off....

For the dinner, I made my first attempt at fried mushrooms.  For a first attempt, and for frying them in a skillet in bacon grease, they were pretty good.  They really need to be deep fried, though, because in a skillet, the first batch comes out great, and the rest end up tasting a bit like the blackened flour the first batch left in the bottom of the skillet.

Then I made some paninis that were messy, but excellent, if I do say so myself.  I mixed pesto and mayo (2 parts pesto, 1 part mayo) for the spread and threw in chicken breast, bacon, and mozzarella cheese on some ciabatta bread, coated the outside with olive oil, and grilled them on the George Foreman grill.  I was in a hurry and completely forgot that I also had spinach, onion, and roasted red peppers to put on them, but I think they were messy enough without those extra toppings, and I really didn't miss them.

We ate this feast on a blanket spread out on the living room floor as a picnic.  Throw in a candle that crackles like a much larger fire and some cheap, but good, dessert wine, and I pulled it off despite some planning mishaps.

We finished dinner off with some pretty generic cherry pie.  I didn't have time to get fancy with that, so it was alright, but nothing special.

Oh, and there was also talking... you know, discussing encouragement and whatnot.  That was the whole reason for the date.  So this was almost a reverse of the discussion from Kristin's date.  I was asking about how to encourage her and that sort of thing, so now I should, in theory, be better equipped for encouraging her in her work, in her ministry, and at home.  I have an amazing wife.

In other news...

We've been enjoying good food and the company of good friends.  We had a couple over last night who we've really enjoyed getting to know over the past few months.  While Ed plays video games with Nathan, Monica enjoys cooking with Kristin.  They made homemade gnocchi with kickin' pasta sauce for dinner.  Kristin had made some vanilla bean ice cream for dessert, but they felt it needed some bittersweet hot fudge sauce to go with it.  So, Kristin and Monica decided to "experiment"...the results were fabulous!