Dance Date!

This Wednesday I planned a dance- themed date!! :)

Now, I have NEVER considered myself much of a dancer. But, I have always thought dancing was fun. I took several dance classes at BYU just because I liked them. Heather (my sister) was always better than me, but I made out alright. I asked Dahl to take a dance class while we were dating so I could dance with him, and he did, but it wasn't his favorite. He does, however, like to dance with me, and demonstrates it by grabbing me and breaking into spontaneous dance randomly and with great gusto.

SO, I decided to try it!

This is what his invite looked like:

You are invited to an evening of dance with your favorite dance partner of all time, ME.

5:00:

I challenge you to a Just Dance competition! Winner gets to pick the dance movie we are going to watch!!

This is the one we picked!!

6:00-6:30: Let's let the fire do the dancing and grill up some dinner!!


6:30-8:30: Watch a dance movie. Options: Footloose, Step Up, Dirty Dancing... Anything dance- themed :)

8:30-9:00: Drive to the dance at "The Center"!

9:00-9:30: Dancing lessons!

9:30- Whenever: Dancing!!!

I think the game Just Dance is SO FUN!! Dahl and I had a great time competing, and he actually beat me once! But I won the rest of the times :) He even humored me and let me do a Britney Spears song. What a guy!!

Speaking of what a guy, look at this grilling man!! It was pretty fun letting the fire do the dancing :)

    

Dahl is literally the best griller EVER!  Does that not look amazing?!

At "The Center" (in Provo if you live in Utah) you can pay $4/ person if you get there before 9:30 ($6/ person after that), and you can get dance lessons for the 1st half hour you're there (9-9:30), so we got a couple of lessons first. They moved SUPER fast, so we mostly just had fun doing our own moves, and I taught Dahl some things I remembered from my country dancing class from about 3 years ago. We also ran into our old friend, Jaren, and he taught us a few tricks, too!! We DEFINITELY want to go again, the atmosphere is so fun!! We decided next time we will learn a few more moves before we go, and I found a video on Netflix that teaches basic country dancing, so we are excited to try that out, too!

Us at "The Center"- don't we look country in our plaid??

This is a way fun date that you can do even if you don't have a place that offers cheap dance lessons! If you look around, there are generally some places that offer group lessons for a small fee, and some even offer private lessons with appointments for a larger fee if you want to get more intense about it. Another fun alternative is going to a concert and just dancing there (summer concerts on the grass are the BEST for this-- the last picture in this post is from one such concert )! You could even find Youtube videos and learn from those if you want to make it cheaper and stay at home! If you don't have Just Dance, you can play a similar game like Dance Dance Revolution, or you don't have a Wii or Kinnect, do a Zumba workout video together.

Another fun thing I recently did that follows the dance theme is I decorated our room like a dance to surprise Dahl! I added some Christmas lights and moved around the furniture to clear out a dance area, and we had a little dance party to our favorite Pandora playlists. It was so fun, and we had a great time dancing the night away!!

It looked kind of like this! (source)

Dancing is such a fun and romantic thing to include in dating! Dahl and I definitely want to do it more often now!!

Not from this dance date, but I love this picture! He's my favorite dance partner ever!!

Cinco De Mayo Date

So, this is a really late post that I mostly wrote awhile ago, just had a hard time getting all posted :).

A few Saturdays ago was Cinco de Mayo!! So I asked Dahl on a Cinco de Mayo date.
First of all, I declared it an "all in Spanish... or Spanglish" night, at least for the dinner portion. So, we had a lot of fun trying to communicate. It actually wasn't too bad, because Dahl served his mission in Long Beach, California, Spanish speaking, and I took Spanish all through high school, and ended up testing out of 12 credits from it for college. Dahl is definitely better than I am at Spanish, but I was pretty impressed with how much I remembered, and we could have pretty decent conversations.

What would be a Cinco de Mayo party without awesome Mexican food? We first went to The Blue Iguana, which was SUPER good. Above are my fish tacos, which were basically to die for!

This weird huge black plastic grass garden place is so fun to me!

You can pull the "grass" back and it will fling into others and send them flying too!

That night, we went to Mi Ranchito with Dahl's parents and got fried ice cream! (We ended up getting two of what you see below because they accidentally gave us the small birthday one instead of the big normal one.) It was super yummy!

Hooray for Cinco de Mayo!

All About the In-Laws

*This is another one of those it-seems-long-because-of-all-the-pictures-but-it's-not-really-that-long entries*


As some of you already know, Dahl and I decided to move in with his parents to save some money back in November. They have been more than welcoming, and we have really enjoyed it so far. I think a lot of people think that it would be a hard situation, and one that you should avoid, but I think they just must have in-laws that aren't as awesome as mine. I have definitely heard horror stories from friends about moving in with their in-laws, and I am grateful our experience has been nothing like that. They have been very sure to give us our privacy, and the basement is made to be its own apartment so we have a master bedroom with walk-in closet and bathroom, and our own kitchen. We even made ourselves a mini- living room in our bedroom with a couch and a flat-screen TV (Dahl's idea, of course). It's nice because when Dahl is busy with schoolwork I can go up and talk to Brenley and Savana and Eric, which is always fun.

Utah Reception that Brenley decorated super cutely

ANYWAY, that's not really what this entry is supposed to be about. What it's really about is how sweet they were to me a few Saturdays ago. Dahl had a test a few weekends ago, so he was down at UVU, and was going to be there until early evening.

With Jacob, Bro-in-Law

Mother- Son Dance

Daddy- Daughter Dance

I had resigned myself to a day of cleaning, laundry, and random internet-surfing, and had just started cleaning the kitchen when Eric came downstairs and asked what I was doing today. I said nothing, just cleaning and waiting for Dahl to get home. He said they were going to Cafe Rio, and did I want to come? I asked who was going and he said just him and Brenley. "Oh I don't want to ruin your date!" I said. "Oh no, it's fun! You should come!" he encouraged. "We'd love to have you!" So I said okay.

Being super supportive at my Graduation

First, they bought me Cafe Rio which was delicious. And while we were in line, Eric asked me if I like to shop at Kohl's. Yes, I said. He then handed me a coupon for $10 off when you spend at least $30 there. And then he handed me a $20 bill, and said, "You have to spend at least $30, so the coupon will give you $10 off, and here's the $20 to spend." !!!!! I was so touched! "You don't have to give me $20 Eric!!" I said in surprise. "Oh no, it's fun, it's fun!" he said. (He always says that... so cute!) So I accepted.

Is that not so nice?!?! He gave Brenley one too, so we got to go shopping together and I got a pair of jeans and a shirt. Brenley was a fun shopping buddy :) We had lots of fun all talking together in the car, at Cafe Rio, and at Kohl's.

San Francisco Trip

I just thought it was so nice, because they definitely didn't have to do that. I wasn't expecting anything like that. I was just grateful for some company! And they made what could have been a very "blah" day, really fun for me. They are truly the nicest, sweetest parents in-law I could have ever dreamed of having. They welcomed me into their home and hearts, and they treat me just like a daughter.

Sisters-in-Law Sarah and Savana

When I got a picture with my parents kissing my cheeks, this was the compromise for the matching picture. Haha. 

And it's not just them! Savana is just like a sister to me, and I love her to death. In fact, we just had a girls night together and we got dinner and watched The Lucky One and talked. Dahl's sister Sarah and her husband Bryan and daughter Jessie are always so kind to me as well. And Jacob is my buddy, too. He never fails to pinch my cheeks and shout KELLBELL! at me in the most annoying possible voice. The extended family have all been wonderful to me as well.

With Nana (Brenley's Mom)

Extended Family on Eric's side- His Parents and Janelle and Dale

I'm so glad I got such wonderful in-laws. They always make a point to talk about how cute and sweet they think I am, and how pretty they think my eyes are. It's kind of funny, actually, how complimented I always am. They always say how glad they are I married Dahl and how perfect I am for him. And Eric always reminds Dahl how lucky he is to have gotten such a nice wife. 

San-Fran

Kissss

Basically, I love my in-laws, and I feel so incredibly blessed to have ones that love me so much just for being me and for loving their wonderful son (or brother, or whatever the relationship may be)!

Both sets of parents :) Don't know how I got quite so lucky to get the best parents and in-laws, but it happened!