Did I Tell You About My Weekend? April 29, 2008
It included a DATE!
Two, in fact. With my husband, of course. My in-laws came and watched Anja on Friday night and part of Saturday so that Husband and I could get out and remember what it is like to hold hands (when one pair isn’t always pushing a stroller). It was fantastic!
We went to America’s largest indoor water park on Friday night, where I laid waste to this thing that shoots water up (it’s supposed to resemble surfing). All the little 10-year-olds in front of me made it look hard, but if you’ve ever been tubing (pulled behind a speedboat on an innertube across a lake), this was a cakewalk. A cakewalk on water.
Saturday we had a nice brunch with the relatives, and then I took Husband on a date of surprises. First surprise - a stop at the Mall of America where robots (which people built) were fighting. We only got to see two fights before one robot exploded into flames and they had to take a break to clean up. Sad.
Then I took him to three places for lunch. Yes, three. Place number one was the wrong place; they directed us to place #2, which was too expensive, so we went to P.F. Chang’s. Husband had never been there before anyway, and he loved it. We shared Mu Shu Pork and some kind of lamb–yummy!
Lastly, I took him to the iMax theater at the Minnesota Zoo and we saw a 3-D movie about the Okavango Delta (in the Kalahari desert). My goodness has 3-D technology improved since I last saw one (circa 1995)! I could almost feel the weeds brushing across my face and reach out and touch the cracks in the elephant’s tusk. It was 45 minutes of African fantasy! And I had coupons for everything but lunch.
Husband liked it all, so: SUCCESS! And I had a good time, too. We decided we need to “date” more often.
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How about you people? What do you do for fun (cheap) dates?
The water park sounds cool. But I can’t imagine my husband and me just deciding to go to a water park on our own. Unless we’re at Disney World–we did do that once.
Mmmmmm . . . PF Chang’s. We also really like Minnesota Grill at MOA. Try the macaroni and cheese–heaven!
This Friday, my husband’s taking the day off (I never work Fridays) and we’re going to the Franklin Institute to see the Star Wars exhibit. He’s more into it than I am, but it’ll be good to just spend time with him.
People don’t line up clamoring to babysit six kids, so we don’t get out very often. When my parents visit (around three or four times a year) they’ll watch the kids so we can go to a movie or dinner. Or both.
Our last date was in December. It was my husband’s company’s Christmas party.
Sounds like fun! Glad you guys were able to get out together–not always easy when you have a little one. Yay for grandparents.
We go hiking locally, especially to a park nearby where dh proposed to me where you can see most of the city from… it’s still romantic.
Other cheap dates include grabbing a bring home lunch and coming home when all the kiddos are gone! Kinda weird to be at home without them, but also very freeing and reminds us of our early marriage when the house belonged to US!
Sharkey–if we had been made to pay the exorbitant prices this water park was charging, we wouldn’t have gone. But as it was, I had a free pass for two people! We went down each slide about two or three times, did the lazy river and watched people attempt tricks on the wave thingy. Then we left.
I like your ideas, Paula. Our dates in college usually consisted of doing laundry together, and now going for a walk is usually the order of the day. I’d like to find some better actual hiking places, though.
Just wondering how you got all those great coupons? My family is planning a trip to the great states of Iowa, Illinois and Minnesota this summer and would love some tips! Your date sounds like a lot of fun - how great to get extended time with your hubby instead of just a quick dinner out! God bless grandparents and their generous hearts!
I forgot to list cheap dates we do. We might go to Dairy Queen and use coupons. Playing tennis at the local high school. Going for a walk. Eating at Chik-fil-A - with coupons.
A lot of our dates tend to be me riding along while my husband is getting parts for tractors or other things on the farm. Not terribly exciting, but we have lots of time to talk in the truck while we’re getting there and back (the places he needs to go are usually an hour or so away) and he sometimes stops for fast food. Even though it’s something he needs to do, it makes it a little more fun when I join him. Another great date we enjoy is going to a little “second-run” theater in a nearby town. We can get tickets and snacks for the two of us for under $10. This week they’re showing “27 dresses” which I noticed is already for sale on DVD, but sometimes it’s more fun to go “out.” We like to go bicycling, too. Sometimes, because he works so much, almost anything can turn into a ‘date’ because we do it together - even snapping beans from the garden. 
Hope that gives you some ideas. But now that I think about it, they sound pretty “countrified.”