I’m not sure if I’m alone in this, but I’m over date night that just consists of dinner. I need more! Especially as the weather cools and the days are shorter, I need more to look forward to than eating across the table from my husband.
During the summer, everything feels magical to me—eating on the patio of a Mexican restaurant can feel like a day in Cabo. But the fall and winter months make me desirous of activities and experiences! So here are a few things we’ve done lately that mix up date night and keep us both excited to spend time together.
1. Rally
We have taken up pickleball! And Rally is a perfect place to do it because there are indoor and outdoor courts, a full bar as well as a coffee bar, and delicious food! The shrimp tacos and lemongrass chicken skewers are not to be missed! We get to get our blood pumping, have a little friendly trash talk, and then eat and drink in a lively atmosphere. This is a perfect date when you just want to mix it up and try out something new.
2. Frankie’s Fun Park
Racing go carts has become a family favorite. If we plan to head anywhere north of the city, we automatically see how far it is from Frankie’s in case we can slip in a race around the track! It’s high-octane fun that never fails to get us laughing, which is the cure for so much of the monotony that adulthood brings.
We are responsible for so much all the time—kids’ safety and well-being, school, business, other peoples’ livelihood, maintaining the house and yard—it’s such a relief to forget about all that for just 10 minutes as we race our worries away! Then we’re primed for a good time together. This is a great date for when you’re in a rut and need something to break the ice and allow you to get back into your groove as a couple.
3. Nail Spa Date
My husband loves a good shave and haircut, but that’s pretty much where his “pampering” ends. The extent of his hand and foot maintenance is clipping his nails and applying lotion. So it’s nice to sometimes sit side by side with a glass of wine while we both get pampered and he’s a captive audience. Once you sit, you’re pretty much stuck for an hour. So this is a great date when you need to hash out something.
4. Fancy Night In
We have a new love of planning extravagant nights in. Steakhouse dinner delivered to our door that we eat on wedding china, roaring outdoor fire, one of the good bottles of wine, CBD-infused chocolates for our s’mores, and a late-night hot tub sesh. This is the perfect intimate date for when you desire to reconnect but can’t stand the thought of seeing other people or putting on real clothes.
Ten years in, we’ve hit our stride. We love our kids and our life with them, but we love each other more. That doesn’t make the hard stuff go away, but we’ve gotten better at managing it over the years. Making regular date nights a non-negotiable part of our relationship and mixing up what we do to reconnect and have fun together is making this one of my favorite seasons of marriage!
If you decide to give one of these ideas a try, let me know how it works for you to switch up the ho-hum, dinner-in-our-regular-booth date night. I want a happy marriage, and I want it for all my friends too, internet ones included!
