Sorry for the delay. I usually post my date night review out on Tuesday mornings. Life has been a bit hectic getting ready for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Last weekend, we chose to stay home and cuddle up while watching a movie. After eating a family dinner together, we sent our kids upstairs with some board games to play together. Hubby headed toward the TV to flip it on, when I remembered we were supposed to go on walk.
“What?” he looked at me like I was crazy.
“Yes, it’s part of the date, remember?”
“There’s no way you’re getting me out there in that weather to go for a walk.”
“Come on! I promised our readers. And if we don’t do it, I will have to tell them you’re the reason why…”
He scrunched his face up, shooting me a playful look of mock revenge.
We grabbed our warmest winter coats and headed out. Surprisingly, it wasn’t raining-though everything was wet.
We dodged puddles and trudged through soggy piles of fallen leaves. Then, we went down our street into the next neighborhood while talking about our day and what’s been going on in our lives.
It’s always interesting to me to think of the conversations we have when there are few distractions, and we change the scenery. Some of our biggest decisions as a couple have happened in moments like these.
But last Friday night, Hubby was just appeasing me so we could get home and watch our movie.
When we arrived in the front door, faces flushed from the chill-it felt good to sit down to a hot cup of cocoa and get cozy.
Since I never made it by the library, I told Hubby we would have to pick from our collection of home movies.
“Hey, since we just went to the Seattle Museum of Flight, this would be perfect to watch”
I held up Apollo 13.
“Yeah. We haven’t seen that in a long time. Let’s watch that.”
While we sat at the edge of our seats during the scene where Swigert stirs the oxygen tanks, causing an explosion-our youngest daughter casually walked into the kitchen.
“I’m just getting a glass of water,” she said as she stared at the TV, mesmerized.
Here’s where date nights at home can get tricky. No matter what age your kids are, they will often forget and interrupt you.
After reminding her two or three times that it was big boob Mom and Dad’s date night time, we got back to watching.
Even though I’ve seen this movie multiple times, it was still nail-biting intense. I can’t believe it really happened and these guys survived, despite the amazing odds against them. It made me think about marriage-which can often seem impossible. When we have an attitude that “failure is not an option”, like Flight Director Gene Kranz did, we will find a way to make things work.
When the movie ended, we headed up to kiss our kids goodnight and tuck them in. As we headed to bed, Hubby said
“You know, I really didn’t want to go on that walk tonight-but it was actually really nice.”
Ahhh…I love it when I’m right.
Atmosphere (romantic appeal): 4. Two things we could have done better: reminded our kids not to interrupt date night, and started the movie earlier. I caught myself falling asleep a few times.
Budget friendly: 5. Another totally free date night. Even better? We didn’t have to use up gas to drive.
Food: 4. Hot cocoa and popcorn, a nice treat and much healthier than movie theaters.
Fun and unique: 4. The walk was unique, since we rarely go on walks together in our neighborhood. It was fun watching something that had to do with space exploration.
Memorable: 3. We tend to remember the date nights away from home more, but that doesn’t mean this one wasn’t special. We still spent quality time together, while saving a bunch of money.
Do you have date nights at home? How would you rate them?
