Date Night: Run For Your Wife

Our thirty-first date

June 17, 2011

Dustin was in charge

Today is our anniversary.  We have been married for seven years.  That's a long time.  So far there has been no need for that "seventh year stretch" so we are good to go.   It's hard to believe that time has gone by so quickly.  I must admit that looking back over our wedding pictures (the very few I actually liked) we looked so young back then.  It's amazing what time and children can do to you.

In honor of seven years of marriage we thought we would have a lesson about marriage and honesty.  Dustin's parents have season tickets to the Civic Theater here in Renton, WA and offered the tickets for tonight's play to us.  We were very excited to be able to attend this play since we enjoy doing these types of things.

This play is a comedy.  It's about a London cab driver that leads two lives.  He has two wives in different areas and does all he can to keep them secret from each other.  We enjoyed watching the show and on the drive home Dustin told me it was full of life lessons.
#1:  Don't be a cab driver
#2:  Don't have friends named "Stanley"
#3:  Don't have more than 1 wife (he also admitted that this was the most important lesson)

We were also able to go out to dinner.  Since our nice anniversary dinner is tomorrow night we went to Red Robin tonight.  Since we don't go to dinner just the two of us very often we forget how quickly we can actually be seated and eat a meal.  We left for dinner at about 6pm and by 7:30pm we had eaten, payed, shopped and were headed to the theater for the show.  We love our children dearly but dinner in a restaurant is much smoother without them.

Dating is difficult when apart for extended periods of time.  We will be doubling up on dates for the next couple of weeks to make up for the date nights we missed.  There's only so much you can do over the phone or skype before it gets old.  Tomorrow night's date will be our anniversary dinner and movie.  There once was a time that our anniversary celebration was usually a weekend away - that is no more, at least until Dustin is all done with school and working somewhere more permanently.  Until then I am okay doing multiple dates in one weekend.

Also, just so you know....One of our rules for our date nights was that our dates needed to be $30 or less (mostly less or free) for us to be able to afford life.  We are still on track.  We have never spent more than $30 on a date.  Most of our dates have been done at home so there has been no need for a babysitter.  When a babysitter has been needed there have been family members available to watch the kids or friends that owe us a babysitting night so that has also been free.  Most of the tickets we have gotten for movies, plays, concerts, etc. have been either free, super cheap or purchased with gift cards.  I think we have done pretty well with our date night budget.