Iron Chef

  I made a date bucket for one of Kolby's Christmas presents last year.  Because he rarely has free time, I got very creative and filled the bucket with over 50 fun, prospective dates, most of which we can do at home when he has the occasional day off.  I even color-coded and coordinated the dates with the appropriate seasons in which they could take place.  I know, I'm as anal as Monica on Friends.  I secretly like that about me.  The idea was to have one date a month this year - we are a bit behind schedule.  Our first date was a video game night in April.  It was just the two of us, and it was super fun - like before we were married fun!

  A handful of the date ideas involve our kids - if you can count that as a date.  In June, Kolby drew out "Iron Chef" for our date.  The kids were dying to be involved!  Kolby and Winnie teamed up against June and me.  We chose pineapple as our secret ingredient and went to work planning.   When the day came, we decorated like a luau, ran to the grocery store to race for our ingredients and got to work in the kitchen. 

 

 Dad and Winn made pineapple frog-eye salad, a delectable pineapple, cheese, and cracker dessert, and a homemade pineapple sorbet.    June and I made marinaded shrimp and pineapple kabobs, chips with pineapple guacamole, and strawberry, raspberry, pineapple punch.  Sadly, Kolby's cheesy treat, encased in a glass pan, exploded all over the oven.  June and I swear we didn't sabotage them.  It was so good, we scooped it from the oven floor and ate as much as we could, hoping we didn't swallow any glass chunks.

 We knew we could never be objective when it came to judging our creations, so we invited Nana Deb and Papa Lee to the feast as our judges.  Some judges they turned out to be - they wouldn't pick a winner!

 It was a super fun pineapple afternoon!  We've decided that family dates can be just as fun as couple dates.  We are lucky to have such great kids!

 Talk about being stuffed!

I'm pretty sure Kolby is totally impressed by my date planning skills - and my psycho level of organization.  I'm sure it would overwhelm a lesser man!