Life with my boys is amazing. We live and breathe adventure. We play together, eat together, sleep together. It is great being a family.
Sometimes, however, mom and dad need a break. Sometimes we need to get away and go on a date. It is SO hard to get away, even for a few hours. As we're heading into the new year, I am working on some plans - maybe resolutions - I want to date Mr. Crum.
We don't have much money to pay babysitters or to spend on incredibly amazing dates. I've decided that over the next year I want to try to date my husband once a week. I'm not sure yet how that will work out - we will have to be better about seeking child care. As we work on sharing "alone" time together (it will be a while before we're out without Baby), I plan to share some of our date night adventures. I enjoy looking at other people's ideas for dates, so why not share ours, right?
I hope that some of our dates will be an inspiration to others, give great ideas for a cheap night out or a fun couples activity. So here is our first date night post.
This week we went geocaching. It was cold out and we only looked for one cache. We didn't find it, but enjoyed a walk in a nice local park that we had never explored. This giant Christmas tree was just inside the park entrance.
We followed this up by a trip to the thrift store. I love this store, 2 floors of stuff. I love looking at all the gadgets and appliances and books... lots of books. We don't go often because you can't take a shopping cart upstairs and that is where the breakable things are.. and we have a 1 year old and a 3 year old...
Loverboy (aka Mr. Crum) and I explored the shop, found some things that were on our mental want lists (still not a used Scrabble game).
Loverboy and I debated about where to go for dinner. We wanted to go somewhere that we can't take the kids. Eventually we settled on Flat Top Grill. WOW! It's a little more expensive than I had planned for the night, but it was AMAZING. We hope to go back there again. One of the best things - it fits into our new dietary lifestyle!
After dinner we checked in with Grandma - who was babysitting. We were running late and she was tired. She confessed that she tried to take a nap on Monkey's bed while the boys were playing. Unfortunately for her, Monkey told her she had to wake up because mommy said she had to play with him.
Great date!
I know what you mean about not being very good at seeking babysitters. Just try to remember: others are usually more than happy to sit with your kids, especially when they offer to do it for free. The next time someone says, "Give me a call if you ever want me to watch the boys while you two go out," tell them you might take them up on the offer and gauge their reaction (I always think they're just being nice.) If they're truly excited to do it, take them up on it! They're probably aching to play cars with your little guys and the kids will probably have a wonderful time playing with someone who is so into the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteOh, and I love our little thrift store. It's one giant room with sections for the different types of things they have. I can "drop" little guy off in the toy section and shop. I can just call out, "What are you doing?" every few minutes and he'll answer. I can tell if he's still in the toy section (where he's supposed to stay) by the direction his voice comes from!
Thanks Alicia - We do have a couple of people that are great about helping us by watching our boys, I just always feel like I should pay people for that help, you know? And we don't have the money to do that very often!
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