Mystery Date Night -- Keeping the Romance Alive.

So the other day I was reading a blog TheNearlyweds when Jen gave me an idea. Her and her boyfriend, oops fiancé', do a date night every once in a while. I thought it was a great idea and a nice way to spend some time together.

My husband and I were married for 2.5 months when his mother passed away and it hit him really hard and it affects our relationship big time. Not only were we dealing with him mourning the loss of his mother but we also had to "take in" his father. No we didn't move him into our home but we would have him over all the time, in fact as I write this blog he is sitting on the couch across the living room from me. So needless to say, George and I don't exactly get to spend a lot of time together unless its bed time. We enjoy entertaining so we invite friends over, we like to go out with our friends, and then the times we want to be alone, his father feels lonely so George will bring him over.

We’ve butted heads about this a few times. I don’t mean to be a bitch and not want his father over all of the time but c’mon, all of the time? When do we get our alone time? Why can’t your father go to your brother’s house? Why can’t your father get a hobby? How come he isn’t bored Monday through Friday but suddenly he’s bored the days he knows you are home?

But I give in and someone goes and picks up the father in law and drops him off at the end of the day. But any way you look at it, it too has strained the relationship. The “newlywed” experience wasn’t really grand for me; much less for George.

So when I read Jen & Ted’s blog, I loved the idea. We used to date a lot before we got married and engaged and it was so much fun. We’ve decided to do a mystery date night and we set out some ground rules.

1. We will do mystery date night every two weeks only taking off December because of the holidays and January of 2010 because we have a lot to do for my sisters wedding.

2. It MUST be done on a weekend (Friday or Satuday night or Sunday DAY).

3. Although it’s a surprise (mystery) you have to tell the other person how to dress. (No dresses for a surprise horseback riding trip).

4. Must be paid for through our joint account but it also has to be reasonable, we have no set budget for this but we will use our best judgement.

5. We can’t do something that will embarrass or scare the other person. (So no nude beaches (like I’d go!!) or jumping off of bridges or out of planes (being pushed out isn’t the same as jumping right!?)

6. No other couples unless its agreed upon by both parties.

7. The non planning person must agree to go wherever the planning party says. Person planning must do the driving.

8. Once I become pregnant I am allowed to veto any planned date night due to feeling sick, not in the mood for it, or I’m just being emotional and want to cuddle in bed with Dallas and Twilight.

9. We sign a 25 year contract for this (like a mortgage) with certain terms for 5 years (current terms) and we can renegotiate the terms every 5 years.


So the rules are pretty straight forward and George decided that he wants to be the first to plan our date night. We are doing our first date night on our Good Friday (Our as in Orthodox) so I’m wondering what its going to be. I hope its not something super religious but he did tell me to get dressed up.

Now I need some ideas on something we can do together that we’ll both enjoy since George made sure to take away my best ideas (bungee jumping and sky diving). A few ideas I had were:

Going to a vineyard and doing some wine tasting
Going to some museums downtown since George loves history and we’ve never gone to the museums in Montreal.
Go to Granby Zoo when it opens.
Horseback riding
Fishing (ewwww this one is going to kill me)
Take a cooking course together
Surprise picnic.
Sending him away for the majority of the day so I can cook and clean and then have a nice romantic night in, with candles and all that usual nonsense I laugh at.

Any other ideas? Can you guys help me out with things that guys enjoy doing that won’t make me squirmy?