Ok this one's going way back in time...it doesn't feel that long ago to me but this year has been flying by!  For Valentine's Day this year I wanted to make something fun for Ryan.  Anyone who knows my husband knows that he is a candy fiend!  I thought it would be fun to make him a wooden candy dispenser.  I saw some online that used a mason jar but I wanted to take it a step further...

It's hard to believe it's been almost two years but...Ryan finally finished my 2013 birthday present.  LOL.  Yes I have gotten other gifts since then but this one took a while to get done.  I had drawn up plans for a kitchen island that I wanted to build and he decided to make it for me for my birthday.  Click on the pics below to see the first two parts of this post or read on to see the finished island!

Recently I was thinking about how Ryan and I don't have a "date night" and I decided to plan at least one outing per month that is something different from our normal activities.  Some of the things I thought of are more date like, some are just fun outings, even couples outings.  The first thing I picked for us was the recent Brevard County parade of homes.  Basically the Parade of Homes highlighted numerous model homes in the area and we drove around to check them out.  I snapped a few pics of some of the houses we liked best and shared them below.  Overall it was a really fun outing with our friends Dop & Amy and we all went out to lunch afterwards.  Especially considering the "parade" was free, it was a great afternoon activity!

I didn't have a lot of time for homemade Christmas gifts this year but I did think of one small thing to make...embroidered golf towels!

Earlier this week, Ryan stumbled across a 3 day event hosted by Florida Tech called the Spacecoast Startup Weekend.  The point is to gather a bunch of aspiring entrepreneurs, investors, tech experts, etc and all work on projects.  It started last night and after getting to know each other, people had the opportunity to make a business pitch.  Then everyone voted on the best ideas and they formed teams to try to make a little more progress on the business idea.  I haven't gotten to hear too much about how it's going but he must be having fun since he didn't come home until almost 4am and then he was out the door again by 8am!

So what am I up to while Ryan is gone all weekend?  Well I'll give you a hint...

It's not Ryan's birthday weekend but it may as well have been, LOL.  It started with a golf tournament on his off-Friday.  Then Saturday he went to the gun range with Josh while I took down Halloween decorations.  After the gun range, he watched the Florida-Georgia football game while I worked on sewing and then he went fishing with Al.  Today, we went over to Lakeland for a Prepper's & Gun Expo.  Sadly they wouldn't let me take pics but it wasn't as big of an expo as i had hoped based on its location.  The two coolest things were the Silverfire Stoves (compact cooking stoves that can burn small twigs and such), the WaterBob (a 100 gallon bladder you put in the tub and fill with water if you know you might soon have no water, only $20), and Thrive Foods (dehydrated fruits and can organizing systems).

Finally we wrapped up the weekend with one of his all time favorite movies: Jurassic Park!

While I was at breakfast and a movie with Liz last weekend, Ryan was at home waiting for a guy to come up from Fort Lauderdale to see his VW Ghia.  In late 2008 or early 2009, Ryan bought a 1969 VW Karmann Ghia with the intent to convert it to an electric car.  Over the years he removed the engine and fuel tank, added a motor, motor controller and batteries and finished the conversion.  For a while he even drove it to and from work.  It was a neat little car.  But last summer he decided he really wanted another VW Bus instead and that he was going to sell the Ghia to buy a bus.  Well – as most of you know, he bought the bus but he never sold the Ghia. The day finally came to say goodbye to the Ghia.

Today is Ryan's 32nd Birthday, wahoo!  Since we just got back from vacation (more on that soon), I didn't have time to do a whole lot for his birthday but I did do a couple cool things.  I packed his lunchbox but I'm assuming his friends will take him out to lunch so I only packed two things...breakfast...and...Fireballs!  For the past few weeks he's been checking every store we go in to see if they sell fireballs and no one seems to sell them anymore so I went on Amazon and got a big 3lb bag and filled his lunchbox with them, heehee.

I wanted to get him a coke and his favorite breakfast burrito but I just ran out of time so hopefully he'll find something tasty at work.  For tonight, we don't have any big dinner plans but Thursday we are going to a four course dinner and beer tasting at our local bar so I'll let you know about all the tasty food and beers we have later this week.  For presents, Ryan got a few cards with some birthday money, a new wallet, some new drill bits and I got him this pretty sweet clamping tool.  The video is pretty long but the first 30 seconds or so will give you an idea of all the cool things you can use it for.  Hope he likes it!

Any of you who know my husband Ryan know that he’s always growing some sort of plant or animal. Yes I said animal.  A few years back he started an aquaponics system where he grows tilapia in a big tank and pumps the water to fertilize other plants and then you eat the fish and the plants.  But Ryan’s projects don’t often yield actual edibles…sometimes he forgets about them and they die, or sometimes he gets attached to them (like the fish) and we never eat them.  But when I came home from work the other day I was so excited to see this giant 16lb bundle of bananas in our sink!  After only a day, one of them had ripened (most are still as green as in the photo) so we ate it and it was D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S!  I can’t wait to eat all the rest of them, yum!

Last summer, Ryan saw a Kickstarter project for a new toy that he really wanted.  Before I tell you all about it, I want to tell you about a crowd-funding platform called Kickstarter.