Date Night "J"

On Procrastination:  "Only Robinson Crusoe had everything done by Friday." ~Author Unknown  


So..........we went on our "J" date way back in June, but shortly after that we accepted our first request from Lydia Home to care for fourteen month old twins! Looking back, I see it may have been wiser for me to have been caught up on blogging but how was I to know my life was about to be turned upside down?  I can procrastinate fine all by myself but aided by caring for the constant needs of two toddlers things went downhill in that area quickly!   I have only recently regained control of bills, laundry, cleaning etc....  There.  Explanation given. Procrastination over.  And now that I'm two weeks post-twins, I'm actually starting to get a little bored!


This Date Night was a little unconventional.  It was more of a "family" date and it wasn't at "night" but when Beautiful Daughter #2 invited us to meet up with her, Beautiful Daughter #1, sons-in-law and the Sweetest Grandson Ever on Father's day, we quickly agreed it would be fun to go on a little jaunt. ( It didn't hurt that it also bailed out hubby who couldn't come up with a "J" idea to save his soul.)  And anyway, who could resist a day with hubby, daughters, sons-in-law, and the SGE? Hence, Date Night "J" turned into Date Day "Jaunt."  


About two hours from us is a place called Sandwich, Illinois where they have an enormous flea market.  We had been there before--years ago--and it was truly a sight to behold.  

Tons of quality exhibitors and food vendors were spread out all over the Sandwich Fairgrounds and we easily spent the whole day there. There was so much to see it was almost overwhelming.  When we arrived this June, the Market was considerably smaller and not much was offered in the way of food. We were told that the economy had drastically effected the participation of vendors. Between this and the lack of food vendors we were a bit underwhelmed but we still enjoyed our time there. But, really, what's an outdoor flea market without some yummy treat like onion rings? funnel cake?  I know it's not the State Fair but I can get a pretzel or nachos at my local community pool!  Well, since it was HOT-and by hot I mean sweltering--even in the shade, it ended up being just dandy that we were only there for a little while.  When we ran out of things to look at there, we headed into town and found a couple of air-conditioned antique malls to meander around in. 


Seeing as it was a combination Date Night with Family, a Father's Day celebration and son-in-law #1's birthday, we ended our day having dinner together. We opened some presents and shared some desert in honor of the day.  All in all, it was a great date made all the more special because we got to spend it with these wonderful people!
A little jaunt = a LOT of joy!

BD#2 and Son-in-Law #2

BD#1 and Son-in-Law #1 with Sweetest-Grandson-Ever

Hubby and Me/Father's Day 2011

ABC Date Nights (Inspiration and "A")

Date Night Inspiration


It had been a long winter.  We were bored.  Bored with winter and bored with each other.  In addition, thirty years together had made us complacent about our marriage.  My life was no longer crazy busy running children to and from, no bedtime stories to read, no school lunches to prepare....not even a kid in college that could use a package from home.  Hubby was quickly morphing into a work by day, couch potato by night machine.  Seemingly endless days of snow, ice and cold along with "nothing to do but watch TV" dragged on....and on.  We decided we needed to make a few changes.  We were SO distressed we had actually resorted to mall walking just to get out of the house for awhile.  It was during one of these 'mall walks' that we had the brilliant idea to reinstate Date Night.  Not a novel idea---but we both knew we needed a jump start of sorts--we needed to learn how to have FUN together again.  To make it more interesting we decided to use an ABC theme and take turns planning our date nights.  We would begin with a date idea that started with 'A' and then planned to work our way through the alphabet until we got to 'Z'.  All that was left was to flip the coin for who went first!  I was the lucky (?) winner and so ABC Date Nights began.  

  Our first date night started about six weeks ago.  As I later discovered, most of the vowels will fall on my turn and by most I mean ALL.  After some quick calculating I also discovered I will get 'Q'.  Oh, it's definitely going to get interesting. 
I actually had a few ideas for 'A' but ended up with Antiquing.  (Special thanks to Beautiful Daughter #2 who gave me this idea!)  The challenge, for me, was to come up with going somewhere that fit our time frame.  Most antiquing places require a bit of a drive and our date night is on a weekday.  I found a place and--BONUS--it was pretty new---we had never been there before!   This was no small feat as any antique business anywhere near us Hubby has been at least a hundred times before!  We were pleasantly surprised to find a new Antique Mall that was the perfect size and had plenty of booths for us to explore.  We spent about an hour there and then headed out for dinner.  We were happy to find delicious wood-fired pizza in an amazing array of varieties!  It was wonderful to get out of the house and enjoy time together.  No TV definitely makes for better conversation!  In addition to a pretty good start to date night, we also had found our new favorite pizza place!  All in all, our 'A' date went well and best of all, we were motivated to press on!