Date night: Home Edition

We are still faithfully planning and executing our monthly date nights.

January:  Irvine Spectrum.  We were unaware that visiting the Irvine Spectrum on a Friday night, we would be among the oldest people in the crowd.  Since it was my birthday, we bought me a new diaper bag (which I still love) and ate some Japanese food.

February: Brunch @ Coffee, Tea and Tulips.  In February, Gavin researched well reviewed brunch restaurants nearby and we ended up here.  I've walked past it a bunch of times because it's in the Micheal's shopping center.  The food was good, and we had a great time watching the worst rain storm of the season.

March:  Barnes and Noble.  We realized that one of the things we don't ever do anymore is browse.  With a toddler in tow, shopping is more about survival than enjoyment.  Since we are still doing on book club, we thought it would be a nice date to just go and wander around a book store and get ideas and hang out.  Strangely, we didn't buy any books.  I'm sure that's at least partially due to our reliance on e-books and audio books, but we both picked up a few good ideas.

April: Home Date

When I sat down to look at our April Calendar, a date night was looking a little difficult to fit in.  Our normal date night sitter (Grandma) is off on an exotic two week vacation, and we had several NOT date night activities (like doing our taxes and church services) that we were already using a babysitter, so I decided it was time to pull out a home date night.

I decided the key to making a home date night successful was to make sure it didn't feel too ordinary.  For me, that mostly means special music, special lighting, and forgoing our normal evening routines (that's the hardest one!)  It also means setting aside the time beforehand to get things planned and ready.  While it didn't take too long, I think the extra planning helped make it feel like an event instead of just an evening at home. (Although both are nice!)

We fed Colin and put him down and then made our dinner of Salmon and Mashed potatos.  We had a great time cooking and eating together.

The original plan was a movie, but I am self aware enough to realize there was no way I was going to be able to stay awake for a movie, so we played a game instead.  We bought some of our favorite candy and played "Pandemic"  It's a cooperative game and we had a great time.

I am so grateful for the relationship I have with my husband.  Having children, especially the long road to get here, has been challenging on our marriage, and I'm so glad we both still have the love and energy to put in to making this stage of marriage sustainable, but also fun.  I love you, Gavin!

Date Night, 2013=Success

In 2013, one of my goals, and one of our family's goals was for Gavin and I to have a date night at least once a month.  At the start of 2013, Colin was barely a month old and it seemed like it would be a very challenging goal to achieve.  The idea was to have an 'actual date' (meaning going out of the house and doing something together) but I did hedge and come up with a few back up plans we could do at home, just in case.

We successfully had a date night out together every month in 2013!!

I already wrote about many of them here and here.

September:  In September we had our very first overnight date!

October:  Carnival Cruise Evening Out

In October, we took a cruise with my parents.  We took advantage of our adjoining rooms and left our sleeping baby to climb around exploring the boat (including the adults only area, not as exciting as it sounded...) and reenacting parts of Titanic. We had recently found out we were pregnant again, so my wished for tropical drink was just a Shirley Temple. :)

November:  Arroyo Trabuco

We had originally planned to go to Flemming's Steak house for dinner.  But we didn't make reservations and when we called, they had a very long wait and no tables.  We ended up eating at Arroyo Trabuco's restaurant.  We love their Sunday brunch, but we were disappointed with our dinner.  Still, we had great conversation and it was nice to dress up for a date!

December: Great Gift Wrap Up

In December, we made a short trip to Vegas mostly to see my parents.  But we went to the Harrah's Great Gift Wrap up for the first time.  We had so much fun wondering around with calculators adding up the point values for things we had no where near enough loyalty points for!  It was much more fun that I would have expected and in the end, we picked several "Nap" items from Brookstone.

I am really proud of us for accomplishing our goal.  To me, it is a concrete way that we affirm our decision to put a priority on our marriage.  Plus in a rushing, chaotic, beautiful life that often involves conversations that revolve mostly around vomit, diapers, medications, the beauty of pregnancy, and every one's sleep habits, it's nice to have a dedicated 'grown up' time together.

For 2014, we continued this goal and changed it a big by adding a "Griffin Family Book Club."  Gavin and I are taking turns choosing books to read that we discuss completely randomly throughout the month.  I suppose it would be a nice back up if we ever ran out of things to talk about at date night, but it's yet to happen.  I'm so lucky I'm married to my best friend.

Date Night: Big Steps!

In addition to our regular date night last month, we had a special over night date!  We are very lucky to have grandparents living in Las Vegas, we'll never run out of things to do while knowing that Colin is in better than good hands.

Just before date night.

We had a room at the Venitian and decided it would be a good opportunity to leave Colin for his first real slumper party.  We had a very nice dinner at The Public House (Gavin's choice for his birthday) and we only tried to bolt for the car twice throughout the evening!

Our date nights aren't always easy to coordinate or execute.  I still vividly remember how much I dreaded that first one.  Would Colin be okay? Did he have enough to eat?  Would he sense my absense and be inconsoable?  (He was fine, slept the whole time and didn't notice we'd left or returned).

I know that for me, dedicated time away with Gavin is super important.  When we set our date night goal, we both knew that sometimes an 'away' date would be impossible, but we committed to still dedicating that time to each other.  When possible, we prefer outside of the house dates because there are less distractions (no to do list waiting on the counter, no monitor to check (just cell phones "My mom hasn't called has she?") no pets, no chores, etc, just each other.)

I am so proud of our progress and I am so happy to have such a fantastic hubby to date.

Date Nights, continued

I wrote before that one of our goals for 2013 was to have a date night each month.

We've continued to successfully achieve this goal!

We left off in April.

May: Sushi Plantation, Mission Viejo, CA

While Gavin's mom was in town, we decided to take a lunch date to our favorite sushi restaurant!  It was awesome that the sushi chef still remembers us and the food is still awesome.  

June: Green Vally Ranch, Henderson, NV

We were in Vegas, so we decided it'd be fun to head down to Green Vally Ranch and deposit some money into my brand new Ultimate Poker Account.  Only I failed.  My account got messed up and I couldn't deposit money.  We ate at the buffet, which was about like you'd expect.  We couldn't find a pai gow or black jack table that met our specifications (two seats next to each other.)  We did enjoy a drink at Hank's Steakhouse which had a very nice ambiance.  We still had a great time just talking and enjoying each other's full attention.

July: Cheese Cake Factory, Mission Viejo, CA

The Cheese Cake factory is our favorite because of their appetizers and dessert.  So we went for appetizers and desert!  It was a perfect low key evening out and a great opportunity to catch up.

August:  Downtown New Braunfels, New Braunfels, TX: Worst date night to date

Since we didn't have a chance for a date on our anniversary, we decided it'd be fun to take one while my family was vacationing at my sister's place.  We usually like pretty low key dates where we can catch up.  My sister recommended a fun bar, but when we arrived it was a bit boisterous for our date night needs.  We set out to find a quiet table.  We did eventually find one, but the restaurant, which we thought was just dark to set a scene, was apparently closed.  The staff was eating at the bar and it wasn't nearly as quiet and peaceful as we'd hope.  We still had fun talking, although on the way home we decided it was our least successful date.  Then I got a speeding ticket.  Officially worst date night ever.

We do our best to take time for each other whenever we can, but having our date nights to look forward to each month has been awesome.  We are also very lucky that we have regular visits from Grandma and Buma that allow us to sneak away without much planning or coordination.  I hope this tradition sticks!

 

Date Night

One of our goals for 2013 was to have a date night every month. I knew this would be challenge with baby, but we thought it was important to strive to have at least a few hours to focus on each other exclusively.  So far, so good!

January:  Drinks and appetizers @ Opa, Mission Viejo

January was by far the most difficult.  Colin was just over a month old.  If it hadn't been my birthday, I'm not sure I could have left him!  We only managed to make it out for drinks and an appetizer, but we did it!  Colin stayed with Grandma and slept peacefully the entire time.  We spent most of our date talking about him, both to each other and the waiter!

February: Dinner @ Yellowtail, Bellagio

In February, we went to Vegas for the World of Concrete Convention.  Gavin made (and won) a superbowl bet, so we decided to head down to the Bellagio to collect the bet and have dinner.  I did much better, but Colin had a tougher time.  Apparently he was pretty happy until about 10 minutes before we arrived.  Overall, it seemed to be harder for Grandma and Grandpa than for him!  He settled immediately after we got home.

March: Lunch @ Cafe Mozart, San Juan Capistrano

In March, we redeemed a long expired gift card for a German Restaurant in San Juan.  They gave us the full value, which I appreciated (I think they are legally required to do so in California.  Still, I appreciated it).  The place was empty when we arrived, but we had a nice meal and enjoyed catching up on the minutiae of our daily lives.  Baby had a good time with Grandma.

April: Dessert @ Chili's, Mission Viejo.

As far as dates go, this one ranks at the bottom for sure.  Colin had been having some trouble sleeping, especially going down at night.  We decided it would be better to wait until after he was asleep.  Chili's had our favorite desert, White Chocolate Molten Lava Cake, and was close, so we decided it'd be a nice treat.   Only they don't have it anymore!  And it was a new, and not very good, bartender.  Plus, it's Chili's so you aren't really getting much ambiance to begin with...  Despite the less than perfect outing, Gavin and I had fun just laughing and talking together.  Colin was fine, but Grandma was disappointed with monitor sitting.  I still contend it's better than trying to put down a fussy baby who really only wants to go to sleep for his mommy.

I really enjoy having an outing together on a regular basis.  It also accomplishes my secondary goal of helping Colin learn that other people love him and can care for him as well.   It helps that my mom comes to visit at least once a month.