For the past 10 years or so, my wife and I have faithfully gone out once a week on “date night”. With our first daughter it was easy to just take her with and go out whenever we felt like it. Once the twins were born and that was less likely, we decided that it would be helpful in keeping our relationship fresh if we established a night out for ourselves. We didn’t want to become one of those couples that works relentlessly at raising their kids for decades only to find themselves in an empty home with a stranger they had forgotten about years ago.
Now it’s not like we live in a huge city where there’s always something new and exciting to go see or do, so after several years patterns tend to form. Out to eat, Hobby Lobby, Goodwill (for her), the comic shop (for me), a movie (sometimes), etc. We’ve continued to enjoy being out with each other, but at the same time “shopping” seemed to become a mandatory part of the package.
Last night, we officially tried something we have talked about doing for over a year. The weather is getting nice again so we drove out to a small town on Lake Michigan. There we had dinner at a great little Italian restaurant (to which we will be retuning!) and then went to the beach. We took our beach chairs, a blanket, and some books to read. I also brought my sketchbook. We found a nice area back from the water (and the people) and claimed our spot. We read, I drew, we watched the sunset, we talked. It was a great night. After about three hours at the beach it was dark and it was cooling down, so we packed up and headed home. It was a great night and we both agreed that it was the most relaxing night out in a LONG time. We will do it again soon…
