Day 20 - Becca & Coltan

IT'S DAY 20!!!! WAHOO!!!

I have a special 20th date in store for you. If you are one of our faithful blog followers my date for tonight should look familiar. . .really familiar. . .really. . . So climb aboard! This is a canoe trip you won't want to miss.

Dear Blog,

I'm gonna tell you a little story about how this date came to be. So last Monday I was thinking about who I would want to go out with and I remembered this guy I'd met at BYU-Idaho. I don't know how I met him there, but I knew he was cute, funny, and lived in Houston. I didn't think we had any mutual friends in Houston, so I headed to the computer to do some quality facebook stalking. It took about 10 minutes to find him, (oh I'm good!) send him a message, and plan out our date for the following Monday. I was way excited. Then on Wednesday I got a call from my good friend, and fellow blogger, Jessica. We talked about how everything was going and what plans we had made for future dates. She started to tell me a funny story about how she got hooked up with someone's cousin, and when she had called him to set up Sunday's date she found out that I had already asked him a few days earlier. She gracefully offered to cancel her date because I had asked first, but we both agreed that it would be much more fun to just go out with him 2 days in a row. After reading about her date with him I'm happy we stuck with that plan.

Coming into the date I could barely keep my eyes open. I had to work early that morning and was going off of 3 hours of sleep. I was worried that I wasn't going to be able to form full sentences and really give this date my best effort. I think I did ok, apart from the occasional rambling. :) The plan for today was to meet up at my friends house, load up her canoe, and head to the lake. I'm not gonna lie, I was a bit nervous as I drove to our meeting place. That feeling soon left once I actually saw Coltan in his flannel shirt. You see, I was also wearing a flannel shirt and I took that as a sign that this date was gonna rock! We were already matching! Wahoo!

We lifted the boat into the back of the truck, then Coltan used his crazy Alaskan skills to batten down the canoe and back the truck up the driveway. Our Woodlands adventure was ready to cast off. (And that's the extent of my knowledge of boating terms.)

It was a short drive to the lake where we unloaded and started off on our journey. The weather was perfect for us. Not a cloud in sight. We looked around the lake and started heading towards the huge fountains and ducks. With the wind blowing in my hair I felt like   Pocahontas. . . in flannel.

Coltan and I had no trouble finding something to talk about. (Which was good because there's not a lot of other things to do on a boat.) He rowed as I talked . . .and he rowed as he talked. ( I didn't do a lot of rowing.) :) We took turns sharing stories about  traveling, work, families and music. Did you that they have fish canneries in Alaska? And here I thought all they were known for was their Cherrio plant. :) Fact!

After floating around for an hour I busted out our awesome dinner. I've noticed that the other girls have been going above and beyond on cute date foods. Well... I'm not that delicate when it comes to food, but I do love a good theme. So tonight's theme was fish food. ( We're on a boat. . .get it?) I got sushi, chicken salad on bread in the shape of a fish, gold fish crackers, shark fruit snacks, and some cute little cans of Sprite and hummus. Fancy? No! Classy? The chicken salad was. Me? 100%. I thought it would be fun to play the game Encore with these little Korean cookies that have English words on them. Unfortunately the words were all animal names, limiting our song choices. I could only think of two songs that used the word 'chicken' in it. Oh well.

Well this is getting long, so I will just touch on a few other things and wrap this puppy up. The sun had set so we put on our head lamps ( I was so excited to use them!) and headed back to the dock. We were about 150 feet away when we noticed a flock of ducks floating near us. I figured they were probably hungry and we turned our little canoe around to feed them our remaining goldfish. I guess they weren't in the mood because every handful of goldfish that I chucked at them sent them flying. The fleeing ducks made a cool sound though.

We docked, loaded up the canoe and decided to take some jumping pictures for the blog. 30 minutes later these were our best shots. :). . .

We ended the date by going to Market Street in the Woodlands and drinking hot cocoa and apple cider. We shot the breeze for another 30 minutes while the bike cops guarded our canoe. (Thank you bike cops!) Then we drove back to my friend's house to drop off the canoe.

I had a lot of fun with Coltan. I really admired how honest and upfront he was. It was great watching his face light up as he spoke about things that really mattered to him. I can add him to the list of people I'm happy to know!

Oh Blog, I can't believe I'm half way there. My first five dates have been so much fun! I know there are people out there wondering how much we are leaving out to make these guys seem so great. I am blessed to tell you that it's not that much. :) These guys are awesome! I am learning a lot. Thanks to everyone who is making this journey with me! Wish me luck on the next 5 dates.

Cheerio!

Becca