First Date

Someone asks you out. You spend hours getting ready. Talking with your bestie about what to wear, what you will do, how excited you are. You can’t wait for your next date. 

Fast forward a few years, maybe even a few kids and pets… you’re stuck in the rut of life. One or both of you are tired from long days. You’re ready for bed by 9 pm (those meme’s are real) and date night turns into sitting on opposite ends of the couch. Maybe going out isn’t in the budget or if you’re like me, I love to travel so I would save our spending money for an annual vacation. You know date nights are important, but once the kids are older you will get back to them. That was us.

20 + years of marriage later, we found date night again! The only thing was, a lot of the dates weren’t anything that wowed me. I didn’t always want to go out to dinner & a movie or Netflix and Chill. As a military family we moved frequently. I loved exploring new things in new areas. Our last duty station, our son took a first date to an arcade and when he told me about it, I was like “your father would love that place! How did I not know about it?” 

After getting creative and planning unique date nights for a few years, I got burnt out and challenged my husband to plan a date night a month. I loved it! Yes, I’m a planner, but I loved the element of surprise and learning where we were going or what we were doing. I got to wondering how many were like me? How many love the element of surprise but have partners who are busy and don’t have time to plan date nights? I realized it didn’t matter what we were doing for date nights when my husband planned it. It was the element of surprise I really liked. So I came up with the idea of surprising couples with a date, or three, a month via text. There is only one rule. When you get your text, you commit to date night. Many of the dates focus on supporting locally owned businesses, hence the name Local Date Night.

I hope you enjoy these dates as much as we have.