Happy 3rd anniversary to us!

 

Our third anniversary of dating was on June 20th 2014!  We originally had plans to go out to dinner with each other but Becky, Shawn, and Katelynn were going to an Indians game and we had been talking about going to a game with each other for a couple of months so we decided to change our plans and head to the game instead.  We had a fun time hanging out with everyone and we only got rained on a little bit at the game.  Once it stopped drizzling it was a really nice night to be at the game.

 

The next day we went to The Melting Pot!  We've always wanted to go there together.  I went once with Hannah and Kyle when we went to Myrtle Beach for spring break years ago, but I hadn't been back since then and Cody had never gone to it before.  We were excited to go!  Due to the last minute change we had reservations at 5:15.  Surprisingly this actually worked out wonderful because we were there for almost 3 hours!!  The Melting Pot isn't just going out to dinner, it's more of an experience.  So if you want a quick dinner I wouldn't recommend going there, because you'll spend at least two to three hours there.

 

 

For starters we had our own private booth/room off to the side.  It was very private and intimate.

 

 

You can see there was just enough room for the two of us.  Which was nice for cuddling while we were waiting on our food.

 

 

The room was dimly light by one light.  It had a pattern on it that reflected on the wall.  It was a really nice atmosphere.

 

 

For those that haven't been to The Melting Pot before here is a run down of what happens.  You have a burner that a fondue pot is put onto and then you cook your food.  We got the four course experience which include a cheese fondue, salad, entrée, and chocolate fondue for dessert!  Since there were only two of us we only had one burner, but if you go in a larger group (I think 6 or more) you get a table with two burners so you can choose different sauces to dip/cook everything in.

 

 

There were so many choices!  We spent quite a bit of time looking over the menu.  We ended up both getting the fondue delight with filet mignon, lobster, chicken, shrimp, and chicken pot stickers (thanks mom for the coupon!!).  Mmmm it was soooo good!!! 

 

 

Here is Cody digging into the cheese fondue.

 

 

He had all the cheese to himself.

 

 

He's like "Ohhhh yeah"

 

 

Here he is with his dipped item about to eat it...

 

 

Here I am with my non-dipped item about to eat it.  Hehe.  No cheese for me, but I snacked on the items they gave us.  They gave us green apples, grapes, two types of bread, chips, and veggies to dip.

 

 

Mmm our dinner plate!  You can see the veggies steaming after we pulled them out.

 

 

Here you can see Cody cooking his items.  You can cook two items at one time.  Most items you have to cook for about 2 minutes.  Then you put it on your plate and eat it.  At first I was waiting on my food, but as I started cooking stuff the time wasn't that bad to wait.  I would just take the two items off of the sticks, and then put two more on.  Then I was eating the vegetables, the two things on my plate and figuring out what sauce to put on everything, and by the time I ate that it was time for the next two things to be done.

 

 

Everything was seasoned really well, but they also had 6 different types of dipping sauces.  And boy were they good!!!  They had a different dipping sauce depending on what you were eating.  We were both really enjoying them.

 

 

 

Ok so tell me... are we compatible or what?  Here is my plate with the last three items on my plate...

 

 

And here is Cody's plate...  Look similar??  Haha!  We just naturally fall into liking and doing the same things as each other so easily.

 

 

 

Mmmm such good food!  We enjoyed our dinner so much... but that's nothing for what was coming next....

  

 

Mmmmm!!!!  The best part of the dinner!  Chocolate fondue!  We both immediately agreed that we wanted to get the original chocolate fondue which was milk chocolate and peanut butter!  Yumm!!  It was torture waiting for the chocolate to heat up!  It was so good I didn't even take a picture of our dessert plate because we were too excited to eat it.  It was full of strawberries, pineapples, bananas, marsh mellows, pound cake, brownies, something called blondies which were basically brownies with chocolate chips in them, and rice crispy treats!  Yum yum yum! 

 

 

We heard the people next to us getting ready to leave and the waitress asked them if they wanted the dessert fondue and they were like "Nah that's ok I don't think we were going to do it."  Cody and I both balked!  How can you go to The Melting Pot and not get the chocolate fondue??  That's like going to Dairy Queen and ordering a hamburger and being like..."No that's ok... I don't want ice cream."  Crazy people!!!  We had absolutely no reservations or worries about eating our chocolate fondue. After we ate all the dippers on our plate we had the waitress bring us more!!  Haha!!  No chocolate left when we were done with it!  It was sooo good.  We really enjoyed The Melting Pot, we are going to have to go there again some time.  We'll have to get Hannah and Kyle to come with us next time and maybe even another couple so that we can get another burner to try more stuff!  Yum! 

 

 

 We told them it was our anniversary when we came in and they brought us some yummy dipped strawberries and sparklers.

 

 

The Melting Pot was a great way to celebrate three years together! It's funny we can't believe it's only been three years.  It seems like we've done so much and been with each other way longer than that.  But I guess we have the rest of our lives to increase those years!  Happy 3rd Anniversary to us!  

We've got a deck!

 

Ever since we've moved into our house, Cody and I wanted to get a deck put onto it.  We were originally thinking of getting a stamped patio but as we were looking at people to give us estimates for the patio they all kept telling us that our house sits too high up for stone steps to be pressed up against the house and that eventually it would mess up our foundation.  So we had two options, we could have gotten wooden steps going down or just put a deck onto the house.  In the end we decided on just doing a deck.

 

 

Cody did a great job searching out different companies and researching and negotiating prices.  He put a lot of work into it, and I think in the end we got a really nice deck at a competitive price.  The only draw back was that it took them a while to get our deck put up.  We were talking to everyone over Easter saying that we were hoping to have a party on Memorial Day, but our deck wasn't done in time.  I guess North Royalton is really particular on how you can lay the boards on a deck, and the guy we used to do our deck usually works in North Ridgeville and Avon where the regulations aren't as strict.  So they laid part of our deck down, and it failed the inspection so they had to lift it all up because the city wanted the boards laid in the other direction.  In the original plan for the deck that board in the middle wasn't needed, because they were going to lay the boards going the opposite way.

 

 

However, once the deck was completed I absolutely loved it!  They finished it in the beginning of June, and we were so excited! As they were putting the deck up we started our extensive search for patio furniture.  I think we went to every single store that could possibly sell furniture, but we ended up going with a nice set from Big Lots.  Funny enough, it was our favorite from everywhere that we went to.  Cody assembled everything and had it ready to go when they were done with the deck.  We were sitting out there before they even had the rails completely put on.  We have really enjoyed having access to our back yard and Cody has liked not having to grill out in our front yard anymore!  Right after our deck was finished we decided to have a deck warming party!

 

 

On June 14th we invited a bunch of people over to check out our deck and house.  Here is our set up.  We had teriyaki chicken, hot dogs, and pulled pork along with a bunch of side and deserts that everyone brought.  Then we had a fun couple hours of catch phrase.  We had a great group to play and hang out with.

 

 

 

Here is Becky, Brenda, and Dad hanging out.

 

 

Hannah and Kyle came too!

 

 

Mark, Connie, and the boys came as well.

 

 

Cody's friend from work and his wife came.  Our next door neighbors also stopped by for a little bit.

 

 

 

Bec a boo and I

 

 

Daddy and I.  This was the day before Father's Day so we used this as our hang out time together.  We are really good catch phrase partners together too!

 

 

Hannah and I

 

 

Love this picture of them! 

 

 

Dad and his friend Brenda

 

 

The birthday girl smiling as everyone sang to her.

 

 

Brenda and I in the house.

 

 

We always have so much fun when they come over.  We had a great night after everyone left and we played back alley all night long.  I believe that the girls went 3-0 that night too!

 

 

These two are too silly.

 

 

Nice picture of dad and Brenda

 

 

 

Overall we had a beautiful day to break the new deck in with.  We were so happy to have everyone come over and check out the house.  We wish that more of our family would have been able to make it over, but I guess that means we'll just have to have more parties in the future!