Project 52: Club Aranda

When I found out that my husband decided on this idea for our date literally 5 minutes before it happened, I was shocked.  Not that he waited so long to plan it (I've been there, too) but because it all came together so perfectly and was hands-down our most fun date yet.  We had had a minor disagreement earlier in the evening (about something ridiculous, as it always seems to be, in retrospect) so Billy decided we needed to just cut loose and have some FUN.  So my ever-creative husband transformed our living room into a night club!

He turned off all the lights, created a Dance/Club Music station on Pandora and played strobe light videos from YouTube. We ate grilled weiners on sticks (with 4 different dipping sauces because he knows I'm a fool for dipping sauces! oh yeah) and drank ice cold beverages. 

We grooved to a couple of songs and then I remembered we had some unused glow sticks from our trip to the coast a few weeks back.  I'm telling you, the glow sticks took the night to the next level.  See for yourself:

Even Brad, our pug, joined in the fun with his glow stick collar:

The night was just what we needed:  fun, silly, and out-of-the-box.  It proved you don't have to leave your house to have a night of dancing and I can't wait to do it again!

Project 52 Catch-Up

I haven't been posting regular updates on our progress with Project 52, so here's a quick rundown of our last several dates...

Date #6
Billy led a Bible Study outside on the patio.  Then we drank coffee, ate cookies, listened to country music, and reminisced about our dating days before we were married.  It was an evening very soothing to the soul, marred only by an unfortunate incident with a mosquito hawk.  Back on our fifth date we started the tradition of taking a picture of ourselves partially covering our faces (because I was HORRIFIED at how homely and haggard I appear at the end of the day).  We continued the tradition:

Date #7
We worked on priority list/goals for our family with the ultimate goal of writing a Family Mission Statement.  We used the resources here as the basis for our discussion.  We didn't have time to finish, though, and will take up where we left off on a future date.

Date #8
The day itself was absolutely horrible, including the discovery of some sort of blue ink all over a load of laundry.  But it was Date Night to the rescue! We began creating the Morrison Family Timeline: A Journey in Progress and ate homemade ice cream cookie sandwiches. Yum yum yum! (There are some really great photos of this night, including one of the beautiful flowers my husband drew for me, but they are locked away inside my spare camera and for the moment they have no means of coming out.)

Date #9
It was my turn to plan again, but it didn't feel right to have a date on Good Friday.  The plan was to do it on Saturday, but then we had so much to do to get ready for Easter Sunday that I had to recruit Billy to help me make mini-carrot cake cupcakes (he drew the carrots on with icing) and bird's nests (chow mein noodles covered with chocolate and peanut butter with a robin's egg candy inside).  So it was just kinda-sorta a date, but still fun.

Date #10
Egg-drop contest!  I borrowed this idea from overtiredmum.  We made lemon squares together and while they were in the oven we had a challenge to construct a transport device that would carry an egg safely from our upstairs bedroom window to the ground below.  We had a time limit, plus we also had to name our creations.  I honestly don't remember what mine was called, but Billy's was "Over. Easy."  Clever, right? We don't really know who won because I didn't open up my container until after I had thrown it up in the air again a few more times. (Duh.)

So there you have it.  Project 52 is still going strong.

What's Your Favorite Knife?

After 9 hours of wall-to-wall toddlers, by the end of the day I crave adult conversation.  So for our weekly date I printed out sample questions from Table Topics. (You can print 5 or 6 questions from most of the Table Topics versions - Family, Couples, Food, etc.) My husband and I then cozied up on the couch, took turns choosing questions for each other, and enjoyed an evening of great discussion.

Below is a reenactment staged purely for my own personal entertainment purposes.

"Which is more important: intelligence or common sense?"

"What possession of your partner's would you like to throw away?"

"What's your favorite knife?"

For the fifth date it was Billy's turn to plan! We had it on a Wednesday because he was traveling out of town for the next four days.  The main activity was feasting on cinnamon rolls creating "lists" of some of our favorite things (color, song, word, game, place, Bible verse) and decorating them with markers and crayons.  I told you my husband was creative, didn't I?  It was fun discussing our choices and guesssing what we thought the other person would choose for their favorites.  He also had the great idea of putting together a scrapbook of our dates, including photos and artifacts of the dates such as the Monkey Poems and this week's lists. We then played Smart Mouth, a favorite game from our dating days.

Both of these dates gave us an opportunity to have conversations about something other than kids and work and allowed us to learn a little more about each other in the process!

Project 52: The Monkey Date

Here are the second and third installments of Project 52 from the past two weeks:

Date Night #2: Games

I kept it simple because we already had a few events lined up for the weekend.  We watched the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics, played games, and dove into Billy's Valentine's Day stash:

Ah, the perks of being married to a teacher.

Date Night #3: Monkeys

I wanted to do something a little more creative this time and what's more fun than monkeys?  The truth is, I had a couple ideas for this date percolating in my mind but nothing certain until I went to Target.  I scoped out basically the entire store looking for inspiration and didn't find it.  So then I wandered over to the food area and stumbled upon a Monkey Bread mix.  The proverbial light bulb flashed on (I really don't see much of it these days...) and Monkey Date Night was born.  Now that I had a focus it was pretty simple to throw the rest of the date together.

Here's the breakdown of the date:

1. We made Caramel Monkey Bread together. Scrumptious!

2. While the bread was baking, we wrote acrostic poems for each other using the word "MONKEY".  I know, acrostics are supposed to describe the word being used but I didn't think writing poems about monkeys was that romantic. Maybe for some people, but not me. I think this was Billy's favorite part of the date.  He just brims with creativity - both in writing and drawing so this was right up his alley.  We also decorated the poems with monkey stickers.

3. We played Barrel of Monkeys. Billy won. He's a monkey-linking-fool!

This was probably my favorite date yet.  The cost was around $12 which isn't bad considering the first two dates were free and now we have a Barrel of Monkeys game for our family to enjoy for years to come!(Special thanks to Target for their plethora of inspiring monkey products.) Also, having a few activities to do together prevented one of us from falling asleep prematurely, which may or may not have happened on our first date . . .

Project 52: Date Nights - THE FIRST DATE

I can't tell you how thrilled I was to discover Project 52: Date Nights over at Simply Modern Mom.  Right away I knew it was just what Billy and I needed to purposefully make time for each other each week.  The keys are intentionality and simplicity.  You can check out more details here, but the gist is that you dedicate a regular time each week to spend on a "date" and take turns planning a month's worth of dates.  For us, the majority of these dates will be at home - we hate asking people to watch our kids because, well, we have 500 of them and anyone who babysits Baby A. has to have a clear background check on file.  (So, that pretty much eliminates all of our friends and family... ha ha just kidding!)  Anyway, on to the date!

I wanted to keep things exceptionally simple for our first date so that the bar wouldn't be set too high.  We chose Friday nights from 9:00-10:00 or whenever Baby A. falls asleep. We drank flavored coffee and ate chocolate chip pumpkin muffins while we discussed our Goals for 2010 using these questions.  (I know, I know, we were supposed to set these goals in January, but we're always, like, a month behind around here.)  We discussed our goals for our marriage, family, finances, and health.  Having the questions kept us focused.  That is, until I fell asleep.  Oops.  (But Billy's used to that because I used to fall asleep at the movies all the time when we were dating.)

Overall it was an undeniable success.  Taking the time for simple details (candlelight, music, the "no frumpy clothes" rule) set it apart as a date and not just another Friday night of watching TV by default. I can't wait to start planning Date #2!