Date Night Weekend.

Sorry I've fallen off the blogging wagon a couple days. Honestly, I just needed a break. Nothing exciting happened. I still haven't run, although my back feels better, I'm afraid to run and hurt something again. My back hurts sometimes when I'm sitting, especially at work because I'm sitting for long periods of time. It usually helps if I sit Indian style, but not always. If I'm active, then it doesn't really bother me. However, I am enjoying my time of just being lazy. After my getting back on track last week, I successfully lost 2 lbs. last week. Now I just have to keep it up for this week. Last week I had my goal at loosing .5 lb/week, so this week I upped it to 1 lb/week. I know I can do it. I have before, I just have to focus on it, and getting the most food for my calories. And by that I don't mean sugar free/fat free processed garbage. I mean real food, fruits/veggies and all that good stuff. I'll let you know how it goes.

Seriously though, it's fall. The weather is colder, and the only good thing about fall (other than it being closer to Christmas(!!), and pumpkin roll), is that when I try on all my sweaters from last year that I were a little too snug for comfort, they all fit this year! And I feel fantastic when I wear them!

Anyhow, back to the point of this post, Saturday was date night. I love date nights. Because we live with my parents again, we don't have the privacy to enjoy a dinner by ourselves, or even watch a movie unless it's in our room, which means laying on our bed where Mr. Skinny promptly falls asleep in 10 seconds flat. Also, since we have no movie playing devices in our room (the Blu-Ray, DVD player and VCR [yes, we still have one, don't you] are all in the living room), the movie has to be on TV, or DVR'd. Yeah, so we don't have a ton of choices. Nevertheless, I love date night and we've been trying to do date night once each month. But the last time we had one was July so knowing that The Lion King was coming out in 3D, I knew I had to see it. Perfect for date night! Well, more for me than Mr. Skinny, but he loves me and my Disney fanatic inside!

We had to pick somewhere for dinner. Since learning how to cook healthier, not processed foods, we've been trying to pick local restaurants to go to instead of chains. If I'm going to spend a good amount of money for dinner, I don't want it to go to a chain. We chose Vanderlyn's, a local owned restaurant which is owned by one of Mr. Skinny's family friends! The chef is the father of a girl Mr. Skinny and I graduated from HS with! That's as local as you can get, and let me tell you, the food was delicious! We were there once before for the luncheon after Pop Pop's funeral, and the food was good, but I don't really remember it so well. That was more enjoying the company. We've been meaning to go back, but just haven't had the time. Well, we made the time this weekend and it was worth it. Pricey, but worth it. That was the most money we've ever spent at a restaurant for just the two of us!

I should have taken pictures, but I will tell you what we got:

First course was a delicious hot and cold mozzarella plate. The hot was fried mozzarella, but it was so good, not like something you'd get at Friday's or something. The cold portion was mozzarella rolled up with proscuitto, basil and sun dried tomatoes, topped with balsamic vinegar.

Second course was a tableside made Caesar salad. This was a huge salad, and a little spicy, maybe the pepper? but very good. It was more of a vinegary dressing than a creamy dressing, and Mr. Skinny preferred the creamy, but I thought it was a good switch.

The main entree for me was stuffed shrimp! Mmm! The crab mixture over top of the shrimp was perfect and while I think the shrimp were a little overcooked, it's wasn't a huge deal. It was served with mashed potatoes and veggies. The veggies weren't tender enough for my liking, and didn't have any flavor, but the mashed potatoes were awesome! Red skinned potatoes, just enough lumpy potatoes left, oh they were perfection! Mr. Skinny got a chicken topped with crab meat. The chicken was super tender, but there wasn't lump crab meat on the chicken like we thought, it was more mixed in with the sauce that topped the chicken although it was very good though!

I had a little room for dessert, but we knew our bill was high enough, so we chose to decline dessert. Let me tell you, if you're ever in Northeastern PA for any reason, check out Vanderlyn's!

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Tell me:


What's the most expensive dinner you and your SO ever had?
Do you do date nights? What kind of dates do you tend to do?
We have always done dinner and a movie, I love eating too much! Although I would be up for something different if there were any choices around here!

Floods, Fairs & Christmas.

Yes, you read that right, floods, fairs and Christmas. You see, I love Christmas, and I'm not sure if it was once Mr. Skinny and I started dating or got married, but my father-in-law is just as big of a Christmas fanatic as I am. And well, he starts decorating for Christmas early. We've both already started playing Christmas music, much to the dislike of most of the family and both our spouses. But they love us anyway and put up with us. Well, my father-in-law wanted to put an archway over the driveway with a Merry Christmas sign and what better time to start decorating then this weekend..? So yes, it might be the beginning of football season, but we were sweating putting this archway up. 

Mr. Skinny's grandma said she "crossed the gate to the west."

Onto the more serious stuff, my area of Pennsylvania, just a week and a half after Hurricane Irene swept through the area, was devastated by the remaining rain of Tropical Storm Lee. It rained for days straight, no lie. In just a few days we racked up over 9 inches of rain in certain areas. Luckily, we don't live by the Susquehanna, but we do live on a lake. The lake crept up to the house, but we were okay. It didn't come up far enough. I still haven't seen the lake that high since 2006 when we had another flood. Again, it was a reminder of the harshness of nature and the reminder that we can't do anything about it. If you've seen anything on national news about the Wilkes-Barre flood, that's the flood I'm talking about. Here's a slideshow if you'd like to see. 

My brother walking in the expanding lake.

Well since I'm not going in chronological order anyways, Friday night Mr. Skinny and I went to the local fair. I didn't pig out, but I did eat more than I needed to. We walked around though, but I'll be writing a post for tomorrow (hopefully) about my current status in my weight loss journey. Saturday we spent it over Mr. Skinny's house including the most likely last cookout for summer. Especially since we put Grandma's furniture away yesterday. I have a few bug bites from the get-together, but I am so blessed to have wonderful in-laws it was absolutely worth it in my eyes. I am slowly accepting that summer is over and fall is coming. Fall reminds me of when Mr. Skinny and I started dating all the way back in 10th grade. I will say, I do love this time of the year. 

Tell me:

What's your favorite season?

Have you ever been in a flood?

What did you do this weekend?

I Survived.

First day of September, who else is missing the Hogwarts Express? I have to say, I love my college roommate, I texted her last night, "meet you and King's Cross at 10:45, right?" Her response? "of course, don't forget your dress robes!" Yes, I'm a huge Harry Potter nerd and I don't care who knows it.

Anyhow, back to the main event. Irene. I am very, very lucky in that department, I must say. Around here, we got hit hard. There were 2 deaths in the area, and numerous trees down. I know people that are still without power. We never lost power, surprisingly, but my in-laws did, including Mr. Skinny's 2 aunts, and his grandma, who is on oxygen. Luckily, Pop Pop bought a generator, and that made its rounds for 2 1/2 days to keep everyone's refrigerators and freezers going, so no food was spoiled. The only thing we lost at my house was internet, which is why I haven't been able to write a post all week. I know that there are worse things than loosing internet, but it's amazing how much you rely on the internet for entertainment. I'd rather have my laptop than my TV!

On Monday, we went over to help a woman from our church who's husband suddenly died back in May - he was only 46 - and she had a tree down in her yard. We loaded up the chainsaw in the truck and went to cut it up. I spent all day Monday hauling brush and loading firewood. It was exhausting. I should have worn my HRM, I bet I burned at least 1500 calories doing that all day.

We still have trees down around the lake I live on. In fact, I can still hear chainsaws going to cut down trees. When I went on my run (mostly walk) yesterday, there were still power lines across the road and still trees on houses. We actually had a tree fall on our old barn, totally cut through the roof. It's just for storage, but it's still damaged.

It's amazing to think that while there are wars in the world, that can be prevented. Mother Nature? Nothing can stop it. Water can be so calm and gentle, and other times it can be so violent and damaging. It's humbling to think about in my opinion.

It's September, a new month, and I actually have a few posts lined up for you guys next week. Everything I didn't get to talk about, baby planning, debt, lots of exciting stuff, not really.

Tell me:

Did you experience Irene? Or any other hurricane for that matter?

I was chased around Florida by Hurricane Charlie in 2004. It was a super fun experience, not really. At least I never had to leave my vacation, I got to see more of Florida thanks to Charlie!