Pages

PhotobucketPhotobucket

Saturday, April 4, 2009

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?

8 comments:

  1. We do date night..let me tell ya it's been a relationship saver for sure !!!
    Enjoy yourself...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Aw that sounds fun! My boyfriend and I still have "date night" too. We've lived together for 2 years and lost some of our romance. So now we go out every Friday or Saturday to do something.

    -Habs game (for me haha)
    For George liking history:
    -Château Ramezay Museum
    -Cité historia – Musée d'histoire du Sault-au-Récollet
    -du Parc Avenue (to celebrate your Greekness)
    -Amphi Tours
    -Arbraska, la Forêt des Aventures
    -Balcon café-théâtre
    -Bateau-Mouche (cruises) at the Old Port of Montréal
    -Calèche tours
    -Casino de Montréal
    -Croisières AML Cruises
    -H2O Adventures
    -Rafting/Jet Skiing the Lachine Rapids
    -La Ronde
    -Le Cabaret du Casino
    -Les Berges cycle path

    And those are my ideas

    ReplyDelete
  3. That's a sweet idea. I know Season complains to me over lack of date nights that we have. I'll have to steal some of these ideas from you all.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jenny, this was a great post. We do a "date night" pretty often too. And it is a wonderful idea. You have to make time for each other and for your "My Time" too. Both are critical for good mental health! Excellent post!

    ReplyDelete
  5. What a great idea!

    Truth time from a 10 year old bride:
    In ten years we have gone from hot and heavy romantic dates to "let's just grab some Steak-Out and rent a movie and go home because I'm too tired to be out" daates.

    Add kids on top of that. Babysitting costs suck.

    However, the need for quality time with my spouse is just as great now as it was in the beginning. I would love to take him to the Melting Pot, a new restaurant that opened not far from here and get some yummy fondue. Actually, I have only ever heard of fondue, so I have no idea if it's yummy or not. Also, I would love to whisk him away to a mountain cabin and erm, you know, erm, do mountain cabin activities. Like Scrabble.

    Great post!

    ReplyDelete
  6. So... I read your post and wanted to throw in my 2 cents. From a 9 years married persons perspective, date nights are a must. We have been doing them since our first year of marriage. we go once a month because we have kids and, like the above comment, babysitting costs are a killer. Sometimes date night is nothing but a movie (that either you or your spouse has been wanting to see) and dinner out. my husband has twice surprised me with a date "weekend" and taken me away. Even to a nice hotel in town, just to be away from "mommy, mommy, mommy" every 5 seconds is GREAT! be sure to post what you guys do. (well, save some detail. LOL) because I would love some fresh ideas. My favorite date night so far has been when my husband got our chef friend to pack us a picnic and took me to the beach (a private section) in the evening. Just sitting, talking and watching the sun set was one of the most romantic things ever. good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'm glad you guys have enjoyed this post. I liked writing it.

    Since we have no kids yet we already go to movies once a week and out to eat once a week so for me the dates are going to be more "thoughtful."

    I'll definately let you guys know what we come up with. I'm still 3 weeks away from the first one I have to plan and I'm completely confused as to what to do. I'm still thinking vineyard...

    ReplyDelete
  8. You have to do date night. We do other things called "Bools" stolen from Stephen King's word for Treasure Hunts. We have done treasure hunts forever. Try it...

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for the bloggy love! I promise to try my hardest to return the love! :)

Page Stats