Ah, fall. The end of humidity and the return of sweaters. The changing of the seasons has brought with it a few changes to our household. Brad decided to go back to school to become the world’s greatest librarian and spends countless hours scouring our bookshelves for items he can use to practice cataloguing.

Though life has become a little more chaotic, we are still stealing moments here and there to spend together and pretend we don’t have a care in the world. Are these moments new and refreshing? Not so much, which is why we haven’t really posted a lot lately. We assumed you didn’t care to hear that our most exciting date night in a while has consisted of going to buy blizzards at Dairy Queen or watching the latest episode of Modern Family. Though these “dates” have been exactly what we needed at the moment, they are not so worthy of a proper blog post. Am I wrong?

Even though we aren’t doing anything worthy of a blog post, we thought we would share with you a list of things we have done around this time of year in the past and things we hope to try in the future. If you have tried one of these already or plan on doing so in the future, let us know how it went/goes. If there’s a great date idea we’ve missed, we’d love to try your idea as well!

Fall Date Ideas

• Fall Photo Tour/ Scenic Drive – Try this one out before all the leaves are gone. Hop in the car with one of Second Cup’s or Starbucks’ fall drinks and enjoy the beauty of the season. If you’re a shutterbug, you can try creating a photo tour of your town. We were invited on a photo tour last year and it was so much fun to go explore areas of our province we’ve never seen before and we ended up getting some really great pictures out of it as well. Even though we live in Nova Scotia, we are embarrassed to admit that we have never taken the opportunity to drive the famous Cabot Trail. Maybe next year (fingers crossed).

• Fall Weekend Retreat – Fall is a great time to take advantage of discount hotel packages. Many hotels offer lower rates during the fall and winter months. One of our favourite getaway places in Nova Scotia is the Quarterdeck Beachside Villas. If you book 2 nights, you get the third night free – a great idea for long weekends (offer is good between October 25 and May 31st.)

• Get Physical – Those leaves are already coming down. Take a break from that monotonous workout DVD and get outside to burn some calories by raking leaves! Okay, we’ll admit this one isn’t high on our favorites list, but if you love the great outdoors and a good old fashioned jump in the leaves, you’ll probably enjoy this one.

• Hiking – another active option for those of you who like to fill your lungs with the fresh fall air. At the mid-point of your hike you could stop to enjoy a picnic. If you’re from Nova Scotia, you may wish to visit Explore Nova Scotia’s website, which lists the hundreds of trails Nova Scotia has to offer.

• Harvest Date – In both of our families there’s a strong tradition of pickling and preserving! Growing up my friends always knew when my parents were making beets and pickles because I would go to school reeking of vinegar. If pickling intimidates you, why not try an easier pursuit of pie making? Or, if that even frightens you, just go out and eat some pie! The point is to enjoy all of the great tastes of the harvest season.

• Football – Though I tend to not really appreciate all of the hours of entertainment football has to offer, I would like to try going to a live game. Check out your favorite university or professional team’s schedule and let us know if it’s any fun!

• Craft Fairs – get ready for the winter season and start your Christmas shopping early by attending one of the many craft fairs around town. The Annual Dartmouth Handcrafter’s Guild Christmas Craft Fair will be kicking off the fun next weekend (October 29-31) Visit their website for more information. Other notable craft fairs in the area include Christmas at the Forum and the NSDCC Designer Craft Show.

Halloween

• Pumpkin carving – an annual household favorite. Check our post from last year that includes surefire tips for a successful carving experience.

• Scary movie night – my feelings towards the horror genre of movies have not changed since last year’s post, but I will stand by my claim to try one per year. A friend recently suggested watching Psycho – any warnings before I indulge?

• Haunted house – if you’re into self-imposed heart attacks, maybe this experience is for you. Many towns have haunted houses set up for Halloween. If you’re a local, check out this website for Halloween events happening around the province: http://www.novascotia.com/halloween/en/home/default.aspx

• Host a costume party or murder mystery dinner – dressing up is probably the best part of Halloween, but it might be weird to just sit on the sofa in costume, so why not have your friends over to enjoy a costume party or murder mystery dinner. We have hosted neither of these, but I would love to try out a murder mystery some day.

• Daylight Savings Date – take advantage of the extra hour when the clocks get turned back to enjoy an extra hour of each other’s company. This year, daylight saving’s falls on Sunday, November 7th at 2am, so set your clocks back on Saturday night.

• New Year’s Plans – no, we haven’t jumped ahead and forgotten Christmas altogether, but if you enjoy eating out on New Year’s Eve, you may want to start thinking about reservations. Some restaurants are booking up fast so don’t miss out!

Hopefully these ideas will tide you over until our next post. In the meantime we hope you’re all enjoying the fall season and that you’re taking advantage of every minute we have until the snow begins to fall.

If you have the itch to travel the world but your bank account won’t allow it, a destination date might be just what the doctor ordered. The idea is simple, everything you do on the date has to relate to a particular country you would like to visit. For our first destination date we chose Italy.

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SHE SAID:

Since creating our vacation box, I’ve been dreaming about ridiculously expensive trips to places like Italy, England, France, and Belarus. Okay, maybe not the last one, but you get the idea. Since my dreams cannot be realized just yet, I thought it might be fun to pretend a bit more and further delude reality by bringing those places home. Say what? Since we can’t go to any of those fancy destinations just yet, we thought we’d have a night devoted to the food and entertainment from one of our top dream destinations.

One of the hardest parts with this whole date was deciding on a destination that had both appealing food and entertainment, in our case, a movie set in Italy. Though we hope our next destination to be England, the food from Italy trumped the Queen’s and we rushed to the bookstore for more Italian food inspiration, which we thought would be an easy task. Not so, my friends, not so. It turns out Italian food is more than just pasta dishes and even those can be quite complicated when venturing beyond your standard spaghetti and meatballs. We eventually did end up finding one tortellini dish we thought we might enjoy and headed to the grocery store, where Brad almost lost the list of required ingredients. Gulp.

One thing this date does require is preparation, but don’t let that discourage you from giving it a try. You can shave off an enormous amount of time by simply ordering in Chinese or going out for sushi. If you can’t seem to find appealing forms of food and entertainment for one country, you could do an “around the world” approach that touches on several different destinations.

After we had stuffed ourselves with 5 varieties of cheese to the point of indigestion we switched to one of our favourite forms of entertainment, the movie. After reading about Only You over at Paula Jane’s ever entertaining and equally informative Best in Romantic Comedies blog, I knew that would be the perfect compliment to the evening and I wasn’t disappointed. I don’t think Brad felt like gouging his eyes out either.

HE SAID:

My favourite date ideas tend to be ones that put a twist on a typical date and are inexpensive. The destination date fits both of those requirements. I loved the idea right from the get go because there are so many possible things to do to have a fun time.

For our first destination date we chose Italy. This was largely because the night was going to revolve around a meal. Although making the meal wasn’t too difficult, choosing which dish to make proved to be a little more work than was expected. In our Indoor Picnic post, we warned against waiting until you are hungry before beginning food preparation on a date. Though we didn’t exactly wait until we were hungry, it took so long for us to decide what to make, get the groceries, and prepare the meal, that we were on the brink of disaster by the time it all came together. If you want to make your destination date easier, you could always order in from your favourite international restaurant, but we enjoy the challenge of making a new dish.

Because the meal took so long, we didn’t spend the time decorating the living room to conjure up thoughts of vacationing in Italy. However, I took a few minutes and made some mini Italian flags to put in our dinner. If you do a destination date though, feel free to decorate your house based on the country you choose.

We chose to do a destination date by having dinner and watching a movie. If that’s not up your alley, feel free to try other activities. You could play a sport that is popular in a certain country, an art form that derived from your destination of choice, or try to find new and interesting music from another part of the world. The point is to bring the culture of that country to your own home for much less money than it would take to travel.

I really enjoyed our destination date. We’ll definitely be doing it again with a different country because there are so many fun options for things to do. If you dream of travelling the world but don’t have the cash to do it, I would definitely recommend you try a destination date. If you try it, let us know how it goes. We’re always interested in hearing about your experiences.

This is date number four of the 12 Dates of Christmas. Watching Christmas movies is one of our favorite holiday traditions. There’s nothing better than settling in on a cold winter night and watching a movie that reminds you of all the good times that come with Christmas. This year we decided to watch Elf. Though it wasn’t an easy decision to make, the night turned out just fine in the end.

SHE SAID:

Every year since we’ve been married we’ve had the tradition of adding a new Christmas movie (or two) to our collection. I’m sure we’ll eventually run out of good ones, but so far in our collection we have Home Alone, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, The Holiday and the original How the Grinch Stole Christmas movie.

This year was a bit of a battle of the sexes as I wanted to buy The Santa Clause and Brad wanted to purchase Elf. Since I weaseled my way into getting The Holiday last year, I graciously agreed to his choice.

Elf is one of those movies that I originally hated and now like more and more every time I watch it. I’m not sure where my initial hatred stemmed from, but I think it had something to do with having no prior Will Ferrell appreciation. Brad, on the other hand, has loved Elf since day one, when Zooey Deschanel first appeared to him on screen and changed his life forever.

Elf is actually a pretty funny movie and I’ll watch it any day over A Christmas Carol. That movie is a glorified Christmas horror film that will NEVER make it’s way into my collection…unless maybe if it’s the Muppet’s version.

One movie that I have been trying to get my hands on is a cartoon that aired on CBC back in the 80’s called Bluetoes: The Christmas Elf. I know you can get it on YouTube, but if anyone out there knows of where you can buy it on DVD please let me know!

Our movie date started out pretty well, but ended as many of our mid-week movie dates do – me asleep within the first half hour. I made the mistake of lying down and not eating to keep my brain awake and turned into a limp, unconscious figure. Clearly, I was not a very good date. Learn from my mistakes.

HE SAID:

One of the traditions that my family started during the last few years I lived at home was to watch a Christmas movie on Christmas Eve just before we went to bed. We didn’t just watch any Christmas movie, no no. We watched National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. I love that movie. Sure, I don’t laugh as hard as the first time I saw it, but it still gets me every time.

Susan and I don’t have a specific day that we like to watch Christmas movies on, but instead our tradition is just to buy and watch a new Christmas movie until we run out of ones we’re interested in. I won the battle this year and got Elf. I would imagine this is a love it or hate it kind of movie. I think Will Ferrell’s silliness is perfect in this movie as he plays a human who was raised as an elf. Of course the best part of the movie is Zooey Deschanel, who lights up the screen (and my heart) with every scene she is in.

Anyway, I love watching Christmas movies. For me it’s one of the best ways to get into the Christmas spirit. I remember as a kid being incredibly excited when we would catch a Christmas special on TV.

I think some of my favorite Christmas specials are ones that I can’t find anymore, except on YouTube. Last night I came across the Sesame Street Christmas Eve special. I used to have the audio of it on cassette when I was a kid and I remember listening to it when I went to bed. I also remember enjoying Raggedy Ann & Andy Great Santa Caper, A Muppet Family Christmas, and Babar and Father Christmas.

Watching a Christmas movie is a great date idea. There’s no better way to bring two people together than through a classic movie you both enjoy. It might be a good idea to have a festive treat to eat and to make sure it’s not too late at night if you’re like us and tend to fall asleep easily.

Since our collection includes two copies of Home Alone on DVD, we thought it would be fun to give one copy away to you. Here’s how to win:

The Prize: 1 copy of Home Alone on DVD

How to Enter: Leave a comment on this post about your favorite Christmas movie. Make sure to include your email address so that we can contact you if you win.

Fine Print: Contest closes Friday, December 11th at 2pm ADT (that’s tomorrow, so be quick!) and is open to Canadian and U.S. readers. If you are chosen as a winner we will message you to find out your shipping address. You then have 72 hours to respond to our message.

Winner: We have a winner! The winner of the Home Alone DVD is Cali. I’ll be contacting you shortly. Thanks to everyone who entered.

One of the things we thought would be fun to do for this blog was themed movie nights. We recently did a retro movie night, but on Halloween we took the leap for the first time in our three years of marriage and watched a scary movie together. I survived without any claw marks in my arms, and Susan survived without succumbing to heart failure.

SHE SAID:

I try to avoid watching scary movies like I avoid the H1N1 virus. Most people can sit down in a dark room for hours and watch axe murderers, exorcists and aliens unleash their rage and walk away unscathed. Not I. As soon as the movie ends I feel like a murderer is hiding in the shadows, or worse, under my bed! I avoid mirrors for weeks. Even previews at the movie theatres can give me nightmares. I blame it on watching Rescue 911 and Unsolved Mysteries at too young an age.

It goes without saying that when Brad suggested “scary movie night” this past Halloween I was hesitant, to say the least. However, I hadn’t watched any scary movies since “The Happening” (I know, not technically a scary movie…) so I thought I’d give it another go. Our friend picked “The Others” for us to watch, starring Nicole Kidman.

As soon as the movie started with an unexpected blood-curdling scream I wanted to turn it off. I fought through it, though, despite the eerie music, horrifying camera angles and downright creepiness.

Once the movie was over, something miraculous happened. I didn’t sense any doom, I wasn’t afraid to look in a mirror (for too long), and I wasn’t crying like a fool! I believe this is due to several factors that might help you along, should you somehow have the same irrational fears as me:

• We watched with friends after much lighthearted conversation.
• No one snuck up behind me or latched on to my neck in an attempt to scare me.
• No one quoted any creepy lines from the movie – THIS ONE IS KEY.
• We continued with lighthearted conversation after it ended.
• Brad let me squeeze his hand as much as I wanted.
• I had comfort food.

As much as I can’t stand the thought of a scary movie, once in a while it is fun to scare yourself. It may even be healthy to get the ole’ heart a pumpin’. If nothing else, it definitely brought us closer together.

HE SAID:

Of all the themed movie night ideas, I never thought Susan would agree to do Scary Movie Night. I’m not the biggest fan of scary movies, but every now and then I get the urge to watch something creepy. For the last three years it hasn’t even been an option for us to watch a scary movie together.

The movie we chose would likely not be considered scary by most people’s standards. But you have to understand that we had to take it easy since I’m not really interested in becoming a widower. “The Others” was more of a loud noises and creepy children type of movie rather than the kind of movie that keeps you up at night from fear of being murdered by a strange creature of the night.

Now, I’m not going to lie. It was very tempting for me to do something to add to the scariness of the night for Susan. I could have left the room and then crept up behind her and scared her, or in the middle of an especially tense scene suddenly screamed “BOO!”. However, I value my marriage. I also value sleeping in a bed, not on a couch (although I’ve never been kicked to the couch). Both of those things combined are far more important to me than the fun of scaring her.

I tried taking videos of Susan clutching the arm of the couch and covering her eyes, but it was too dark in the room so it didn’t turn out. Here’s a picture of her first time driving across the Confederation Bridge to show you what she might have looked like had the pictures turned out. Regardless, I really enjoyed scary movie night. It’ll probably be a while before we indulge in such things again, but I’m glad she got over her fears even just once. In the end it’s just more proof that it doesn’t really matter what you’re doing, as long as you’re enjoying time with another person.

If you have a favorite scary movie we would love to hear about it. Maybe you have a fun story about watching one with someone. Let us know in the comments.

This is the first in a series of themed movie nights we have planned that are perfect for those of you who enjoy spending a night inside with someone special. On our first movie night we decided to go with a retro theme. All it took was a cheap dinner out to a 50’s style restaurant (which could easily be done at home), a few candy treats, and a classic movie.

SHE SAID:

Sometimes I feel like I was born 30 years too late and missed out on what seems like the simpler times of the 50’s, the decade filled with swing music, lollipops and poodle skirts. If someone could transport me back in time, the 50’s are the first decade I would make a stop in. Since we couldn’t figure out a way to take ourselves back to the 50’s, we went out and got the 50’s for ourselves!

If you’re going to have a retro movie night, you must first treat yourselves to a retro meal. Luckily, we live pretty close to The Chickenburger, a classic retro drive-in style restaurant complete with vintage jukebox.

I have loved visiting The Chickenburger ever since I was a little kid and couldn’t believe when I found out while dating Brad that he had never eaten there before! I love that their cheeseburgers are just the right size, made of real meat and come in a cute paper wrapper. Obviously I ordered one of these with shoestring French fries.

For those of you without a unique retro style restaurant nearby, there’s always A&W. For those of you without an A&W, we feel for you. The next time you go into town, buy yourselves some ice cream and bananas and whip up some good ole’ fashioned banana splits.

No retro movie, or any movie, is complete without candy. Before we headed home from The Chickenburger we made a pit stop at the Freak Lunchbox, a candy lover’s dream come true. Some of the treats we picked without really knowing what they were (i.e. pink elephant popcorn). While some candies are better left in the 50’s, none can compare with gummy cola bottles and candy necklaces.

Finally, we were home and ready to watch our movie. We decided on Grease because – hold your horrified gasps – we had never seen it in completion before. I liked it for the most part, but Sandy lost me when she started into her slow songs. If you’re typically not into musicals, but want to give them a try with your retro movie night, I would highly recommend Hairspray, even though it’s not technically retro. I had a great time with Retro movie night and look forward to our next themed movie night.

HE SAID:

Movie nights are always a good idea in my books. Sure I love getting outdoors and finding new and exciting things to do, but there’s just something about settling in to watch a good movie that I really enjoy. Retro movie night seemed like a simple way to put a twist on the typical night in without having to spend an arm and a leg.

As Susan mentioned, I had never been to the Chickenburger in Bedford before I met her. I’m pretty sure, even if just for a moment, she had some serious second thoughts about me when she found that out. I’m glad she showed me the light because I really enjoy it now. Sure it’s kind of greasy and is basically just fast food, but at the Chickenbuger none of that matters. I love the atmosphere, the prices are really cheap, and the food really does taste great.

I did have one problem with the Chickenburger though. I’m pretty sure the men’s washroom door weighs as much as an elephant. Let’s be honest, I’m not the biggest or strongest guy by any stretch of the imagination, but I tried four times to get that door open and I couldn’t do it. It was actually quite embarrassing. Here I was taking running leaps into the door trying to get it open, but it refused every time. Then an old man came by and pushed it open with one hand. I think he muttered something about kids these days as he passed by…I then walked away in shame as we moved on to the Freak Lunchbox to get our candy.

The thing about the Freak Lunchbox is that there are so many choices it can be overwhelming. Our biggest problem was that a lot of the candy they have is packaged to look retro, but we honestly had no idea what was and wasn’t authentic. All that aside, it’s a fun place to go with all the various treats and trinkets they sell.

Finally, we arrived home and popped in the classic John Travolta movie Grease. I had never seen it before so I was actually looking forward to watching the old musical. Although it didn’t end up in my top 10 list, it was enjoyable and suited the rest of our evening quite well.

Remember, the purpose of everything we write about is to spend time with another person and do some out of the ordinary things. Watching a movie at home may not seem very special, but when you give it a theme it gets a whole new life. It ends up being more than simply watching a movie. I had a lot of fun with retro movie night and I hope you give it a try. What are some of your favorite retro movies, candies, or restaurants? Let us know in the comments.