And More Dates

A few outings of late:

 On a random Saturday we took a family trip to Indianapolis for an appointment and stopped for lunch at Hubbard & Cravens in my favorite part of town, Carmel City Center. After a chatty lady complimented Poppy's boots we found out she was the wife of the developer and their family had lived in France where they were inspired to build something similar in Indy. I knew there was a reason I liked this area so much.

This sweet thing is still completely in love with her dad. 

 I can't think of the last time we went out for lunch together as a family. It was nice, even if Poppy did spill TWO glasses of water (seriously, how does that happen?). Oh, and that carrot, ginger, lime juice was awesome.

A quiet evening without the little ones. 

I've come to embrace the fact that I like good craft beer better than wine. Quite a bit more, actually. Kind of weird for a girl to say, but it's true. This beer from People's Brewing Company is made only for this coffee shop and is infused with their coffee…an excellent idea. 

Bry spent this "date" reading the creative thesis that I wrote for my grad school program…because I FINISHED it! Still can't quite get over that.

 Bry and I were in Bluffton on Valentine's Day for a busy baptism weekend. His parents offered to babysit so we were able to at least get away for lunch at Club Soda in Ft. Wayne.

His smoldering Valentine's Date face

This place went above and beyond. They handed out chocolate covered strawberries, gave us both generous samples of a drink we were considering after we had already ordered something else, and brought us a second dessert for free so we could try more than one. Way too much sugar, which I later regretted, but good service nonetheless.

Our last date has no pictures because it pretty much crashed and burned. We had decided that the Tuesday after the 14th would be our "real" Valentine's Day since we would be back home and had babysitting lined up for the evening. We tossed around a couple of ideas but they fell through and I hoped that Bry had something else planned…because Valentine's Day is all about the guy doing amazing, over the top things for the girl to show her just how much he loves her, right? 

Turns out he didn't have anything planned. Like, not even a boring card or flowers. I thought his reasons were lame (he'd had a super busy week at work, he's not creative, he thought I was planning the night…), so I was a little ticked. Ok, I was a lot ticked, which spiraled into me thinking about all the reasons that this was typical of him and our relationship in general, and we spent most of the night in silence. Bry described the date as "icy---inside and outside." 

To his credit, he responded well and I've noticed that he has made an effort to put more energy into our relationship since then which is really cool. For me it was a helpful lesson in expectations and my selfishness. I'm reading a good book (The Meaning of Marriage by Tim Keller) and Keller describes this as the "radical self-centeredness of the sinful human heart."

A couple excerpts if you're interested:

"Self-centeredness by its very character makes you blind to your own while being hypersensitive, offended, and angered by that of others. The result is always a downward spiral into self-pity, anger, and despair, as the relationship gets eaten away to nothing. 

But the gospel, brought home to your heart by the Spirit, can make you happy enough to be humble, giving you an internal fullness that frees you to be generous with the other even when you are not getting the satisfaction you want out of the relationship."

"If God had the gospel of Jesus's salvation in mind when he established marriage, then marriage only 'works' to the degree that approximates the pattern of God's self-giving love in Christ."