The Return of Date Night: Creative ideas for your next date

I feel like this should be some sort of horror flick with lots of suspense, blood and gore, but it’s not.  It’s just this mythical thing my husband and I think we used to take part in, but we’re not really sure because it’s been so long ago.  Maybe mythic isn’t the right word?  Urban legend?  Do date nights really exist once kids appear in your life?  Actually, thinking back, I don’t think we had many date nights before kids either because of our opposite schedules and the military butting it’s head in at the most inopportune moments.

I’ve spent some time discussing this with my husband, Nick, and we both agree we need some time together.  It’s not easy never seeing each other, sometimes for a year at a time, and even worse when we’re so close together yet so far away.  He works two jobs, not counting the military and I’m a stay at home mom by day and direct sales consultant by night, so our together time is spent exhausted lying next to each other for a couple hours a night. He gets up and leaves before I get up, I get to bed after him…all by design of our current situation, and neither of us are happy about this.

Luckily, we both understand that we get to decide how our story is written.  We get to decide what we do about things, and it’s not uncommon for us to take an unconventional approach to things.  I told Nick the other day that I didn’t care how it was going to happen, but it was going to happen.  We were going to start having date nights again and I didn’t want to hear any objections, only problem solving ideas to get us moving again in the right direction.  He agreed, so here we are.

The return of date night.

This is sort of taking the form of my Pay it Forward Challenge where I will list out a bunch of different ideas and I’ll link to the blog post once it’s been completed.  It’s simple. It’s going to give us a list of ideas when we know we need/want to do something together. And, my favorite part, I’m going to divide this up into ideas for when we have a babysitter and when we don’t.  Let’s face it, as much as we would love to have weekly date nights, we can’t afford to go out and leave the kids with a sitter all the time, nor does family want to watch our kids all the time.

I hope you’ll grab some ideas from this list.  Maybe a little inspiration to get to know your significant other a little bit better.  Or, maybe you have some great ideas or words of wisdom to share with us as we work to rediscover each other and find a little time to be a couple again.

The rule is if it’s at home while the kids are still around, they need to be napping or in bed for the night.  The focus is on building up and maintaining a relationship and realizing there is more to each other than just the titles of mom and dad. Have fun with this list, and as we do some of these, I’ll link to the stories.

Movie Night

Dance Party

Board Game Night

20 Questions

Breakfast or Brunch (any time of the day or night)

Star Gazing

Learn something new together

Our own personal book club

Exercise together

Curl up by the fireplace with a bottle of wine

Whip up something in the kitchen together

Have a picnic in your backyard or in the living room

Read our favorite poetry together (yeah, we’re those kind of people, lol)

Lego building contest (yeah, those kind too!)

In home spa date (we can pamper each other)

Play cards

Create paintings together

Write a story together

Water balloon fight (in the warmer months, of course)

Order delivery pizza and just hang out

Portrait studio (take pictures of each other!)

Create a collage

Document everyday life (scrapbooking or be creative)

Make a movie together. Write the script, find the props, film the show!

Pajama party! Get in your pj’s, get some sleeping bags, pop some popcorn and play truth or dare.

Candle lit dinner (get the good china out if you have it!)

Pizza party, create your own pizzas

Play video games together.

Create crosswords and make each other try to solve them.

Bake something together

Draw fun pictures on the sidewalks with chalk

Create a list of things you want to do together (both big and small things)

Watch a sunrise or sunset together.

Create a time capsule.

Movie Night

Coffee Shop

Billiards

Geocaching

Art Museum

Go to the Zoo as a couple rather than a family

Visit a local bookstore

Go to the botanical gardens

Out to dinner

Spend the evening in an historica area of town

Take a walk together

Go out for ice cream

Go to a wine tasting

Go on a picnic

Go to a Musical

Take a ride in a Hot Air Balloon

Drive around a look at holiday lights (seasonal of course)

Spend the night talking by the lake side (this one has significant meaning to us.  I’ll tell you the story sometime.)

Go to the mall and window shop

Make up a list of items and go on a scavenger hunt together

Fly a kite together

Go people watching at a public place.

Go antiquing and see who can find the best deal.

Go to an arcade.

Go to a paint your own potter place and make some mugs or plates for each other.

What other fun date ideas do you have that I could add to the list?

Please keep the ideas PG (I’m not that kind of a blog, lol)

Don’t forget to share your dating fun in the comments!