Date Night : Jan. 21st

For the first time in....FOREVER... Lance was not scheduled to work on Friday. We decided to take advantage of this rare occasion and make it a "date night". Lance told me several days in advance that it was completely up to me. He wanted me to plan everything. He and I both hate choosing what to do and making decisions. We tend to fall into the same routines and find ourselves doing the same things when we have time together. I was determined to come up with something new and different that we usually don't do.

My first ideas were: dinner, movie, bowling, laser tag, etc...but none of those were new or different. Then I decided I wanted to set up some sort of scavenger hunt type thing. For some reason, my creative half of my brain decided to go on vacation last week. I struggled coming up with places to go, things to do, anything! I even looked for ideas online, but nothing was sounding quite right. Frustrating! Thursday morning at work, I was trying desperately to come up with an idea but still not having much success. Then lo and behold, channel 2 news was doing their traveling section and they were in Logan. They were showcasing this place called Hardware Ranch. It is a wildlife management area.

To keep elk from wandering into the city, they put hay out each day to attract the elk. Over the years, the elk have learned that that is the place to go during the winter. During the winter months, the Ranch offers sleigh rides to go out on a ride through the elk. My first thoughts were, that's kind of weird....and different. PERFECT. So once Lance was done with classes, we hurried up the canyon to go on this sleigh ride. He had no idea what we were doing, so he was pretty confused and curious as to why we were heading up the canyon. During the ride up and down the canyon, we spotted between about 40-50 deer.

There were so many just hanging out by the road. I am never driving through that canyon in the dark! The sleigh ride took us out through the field by the elk. We stopped several times along the way for pictures and for the driver to give a little bit of information. It was actually pretty interesting and a fun activity. I had hot chocolate waiting for us in the car when we got through with the ride. I realized once we got up there that I had left my camera at home. It was packed and waiting by the door, but I guess I just forgot. So the few pictures I have are from my phone.

After we got back into Logan, we went out to dinner. After much discussion and debate, we decided to try a new place. We ate dinner at El Sol, it's a Mexican restaurant pretty close to our place. I got a chicken burrito, cheese enchilada, rice, and beans while Lance got a large shredded beef burrito with rice and beans. The chips and salsa were pretty good and I got pretty filled on those. The food was just ok for me. Lance seemed to like it and said he would go back, but I don't think I would. I ended up eating way too much, and my stomach hated me for the next few hours. It didn't help matters that we went to Cold Stone later that night after we watched a movie. Again, I decided to try something new. I got the Cake n' Shake. It honestly tasted like I was drinking cold cake batter. Seeing as I love cake batter, the shake was heaven. (Especially since I'm not supposed to eat cake batter while pregnant.) My stomach was still full from dinner, but the shake was so good, I drank more than I probably should have. I put the rest of it in the freezer for later. I had to work the grave that night, and I spend the whole night really uncomfortable...most likely from eating too much. I don't think it was the food that made me sick, just the amount of it. Overall, it was a very successful evening and one that I quite enjoyed.