Date Night...As Easy as 1, 2, 3! (Part 1)

I want a life filled with extraordinary. I want to be an extraordinary mom, an extraordinary wife, and to lead an extraordinary life. My sweet husband and I have more time to "date" one another than most married couples with children. Due to me being divorced, the boys spend two weekends per month with their father, and due to my parents being extraordinary grandparents, the boys also sleep over at Nan and Pop's a few times a month. I know not every situation is like ours, and that some couples are lucky to hire a sitter for a date once a month. We are lucky to "date" one another just about every weekend. We both LOVE this, and this is one of the reasons we feel like we have such a strong relationship. Dating your spouse is important.

Dates can get boring though. The typical dinner and a movie date can get mediocre. Maybe it is tough to afford. Maybe you just want something different. If you are like us, we VALUE this alone time, but sometimes we get stuck finding something to do.

Enter a brilliant idea shared with me from an old high school friend, Julia Kerrigan. She told me that she planned for her husband-to-be an "envelope date". She had 12 envelopes with three choices each for different parts of the date. Julia says, "Each part had a different location. For example, for dinner I had 3 cards with 3 different restaurants in them. The second part of the date had 3 different choices, Bowling, a movie and I can't remember the 3rd choice, I think a fair. We went bowling. The 3rd was go out for a drink, karaoke, or stargaze. The 4th was stuff back at home (you get the hint). Each one was chosen and that was what you do. He was allowed to veto only once!!!" 


I thought this was an awesome idea, and copied that same night. I made a few modifications though for us.  There were only nine envelopes (I omitted the "back at home" one, just because I already feel pretty darn creative there!), and we opened ahead of time. My sweet man (and me too honestly) is not huge on total surprises, so the fun surprise was picking the envelopes (we did not include any vetoes!), and then having a few days to plan the details. For example, we chose: 

• Start of date: Go on a hike together.
• Middle of date: Date night in-a friendly competition of Sorry!, Monopoly and Life. Winner best 2/3 gets to dictate what happens later tonight!
• End of date: Ice cream, frozen yogurt, or pie date!

In the past few days we have planned a gorgeous looking hike in Corvallis, incorporated bringing our favorite Chinese food back for board game playing, and decided to do ice cream in after board games. Simple, but we are so looking forward to it.


This spurred us on. Together, Barrett and I talked of how to make this idea even BIGGER. We came up with the idea of date jars. I combed the net this morning, and we came up with our own ideas as well. We have 19 Start the date ideas, 25 middle of the date ideas, and 18 end the date ideas. If I am doing my math right, since any combination is possible...that's 8,550 total combinations (again...if my math is right-not my strongest point by far!). This way we can pick a slip from each jar, and there is a date! 
Please feel free to beg, borrow and steal this idea or the envelope idea it came from (thanks again, Julia!).

 My only disclaimer before sharing the ideas, is that this was built with us in mind. We are married, and we have entire days to spend on a date. Some End the date ideas are a bit racy, and some ideas involve wine, so they are not meant for you if you are a teen and dating, though the other ideas might be great! I tried to come up with things that were romantic, silly, fun and even active. Some are spendier than others, and though MOST combinations work together to make fun, interactive and exciting dates, some are not feasible (or are seasonal), so we can simply draw another slip. We plan on using these again and again so that we get many combinations, and adding other ideas as they come up.


Happy dating. Check out my next 3 posts(Date Night as Easy as 1, 2, 3! Parts 2-4) for the actual list of ideas, and email me or comment with your own ideas.