Bryan and I have been keeping up with out monthly date nights and they have all been SO fun! We originally started with a $50 budget for each date, but have recently been challenging ourselves to keep the spending to a minimum. This month I proved that dates don't have to cost money to be fun. I spent a total of $2! Yep, that's it! I was so proud of myself. So here's what we did....
This month just happened to be our 5 Year Anniversary so I decided to base my date around that. Bryan and I aren't what you would call "traditional" when it comes to the typical lovey-dovey stuff. For example, we don't have "a song", neither of us can remember what we did for our first date, and we strongly disagree about the first time we said I Love You to each other. So planning an anniversary date is a little more difficult then you would imagine. I decided to pick a song that I liked and change it a bit to fit our relationship and use that throughout the night's activities. I chose You're My Everything and went from there.
I picked 5 activities (see the connection there? 5 years... 5 activities, yeah I'm super creative! lol) and then taged each activity with the chorus-
"Every night I pray,
on bended knee,
that you will always be
My ___"
Then the blank was filled in with these five things- Best friend, Taste Tester, Note Writer, Questioner, and Masseuse.
Bryan got to choose which activity we did first. We started the night by opening Bryan's gift. I couldn't figure out what to get Bryan for our anniversary so I went to this website I've heard of, but always been too scared to try. It turned out GREAT! The website is called Gift Sling. Basically, you go there, fill out a survey about the person you're shopping for, pay $20, and then wait for the gift to show up. I had no idea what Bryan would be getting. The survey was so random and asked the weirdest questions! And I was a little worried that I was going to get ripped off (pay $20 for something that only cost $5). But it turns out that I paid $20 for something that normally cost $50!
Bryan got Epic Mickey for the Wii! Such a fun game, and something that he will actually play and have fun with! I have no idea how they knew he would like this, but it worked out great!
Then we moved on the playing cards. This was the "Best Friend" portion. Before we started dating we did a lot of group activities with our friends, like playing cards after each exam, or playing games with my family. This time we made it interesting and decided that the loser would have to make dinner for the winner. Of course I won! So Bryan had to do the hard part of the "Taste Tester" portion of our date. He made pene pasta with sausage, peppers, and a red sauce. I helped by making the garlic bread! ;)
During dinner we played a game we used to play a lot when we were dating. This was the "Questioner" portion of our date. It's a different version of 20 questions. We get to ask each other any question we can think of and the person has to answer honestly. The game used to consist of questions like "what's your favorite color?" or "Who is your favorite comedian?" But, since we've been married for 5 years now, the questions had to evolve. Instead we asked things like "If you had unlimited funds, where would you take our family on vacation?" or "What's one thing you mean to say to me more often, but don't?" The questions actually turned into pretty interesting conversations. And, for once, our conversations weren't about the three M's (Money, Michelle, or Managing our time).
After dinner we had to go pick up Michelle from Grandma and Grandpa's house. We came home, gave her a tub together and put her down for the night. Then we went to our room and finished our date with the "Masseuse" portion of the night. I even broke out the massage oil from Bath and Body works! After the massages I introduced Bryan to the "Note Writer" portion. I wouldn't say it was part of our date so much as it is a part of our lives now. This is also the only part of the night that cost me any money. I bought two notebooks and covered them in scrapbook paper. Then I wrote on the front page of each the answers Bryan and I gave to the following:
The definition of OUR marriage, not marriage in general.
Your favorite part of our relationship.
And the end of this sentence- In order to maintain our happy marriage I must remember...
Then every night, before bed, we write in our "journals" what our favorite thing that the other person did that day was. For example, last night I wrote about how much I love when Bryan plays with Michelle and makes her laugh till she gets hiccups! We do this every night and then at the end of the week we switch journals. We've been doing this for a few weeks now, and I love it! I get so excited for Sunday night when I get to read all the things Bryan has written about me, and he gets to see everything I've written about him.
Maybe we'll do something big and elaborate for our 10th anniversary, but for us, we both agreed that this was a perfect way for us to spend our 5th anniversary.
On our way to the car Michelle found out that there were birds on the grass. There was no question, as soon as she saw them she was off! "I have to catch them!", she yelled to us as she was running away.
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