Wednesday Oui: Date Night for Free!

I have spoken of date night many times on this blog and, I suppose, in "real life" too because everyone tends to acknowledge Monday night as "date night" for us. For example, if Nickie, Nicki (that's not a typo, I have two) or Hilary calls me on date night they will usually begin the conversation with, "Hey, I know it's date night, but I just had to tell you this really quick..." Or my in-laws will tease me and say something like "Oh, never mind, Monday is date night," (with a gooey emphasis on "date.") We love it. We love our date night and we have stuck to it, religiously. It's nice to look forward to a day that isn't on a weekend.

We have done some pretty amazing things for date night. We've been to expensive restaurants (ones we wouldn't normally go to) we've driven to a big mall or made a date night hike to Trader Joe's, we've seen a lot of movies on date night (Alice in Wonderland- 3D, The Lovely Bones, Valentine's Day and a few others) we've had game night and craft night at home, or spent time cooking together in our kitchen; we've been to the library for hours, or thrown the kayaks into the back of the truck and taken off for the afternoon; we've even just spent the night weeding our garden and talking.

 We elected Monday as our date night for many reasons: 1.) I can get out as early as I want on Mondays. 2.) Everyone hates Mondays. Many people view Monday as the beginning of the dreaded work week and therefore, live for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I think that's sad. 3.) Because Monday is the day most people are "getting into the swing of the week" people don't tend to go out and about so we have many opportunities to go out to eat or to a movie and it feels like it's just the two of us in the world. I love that. 4.) For me, it's a great start to the week.

Last Monday was probably one of my favorite date nights-- ever. We packed up the boys, our camera (which I contemplated throwing off the ledge and into the lake so I could rationalize buying my Canon Rebel) and laced up our hiking shoes. It was a gorgeous night; not too hot, not too cold and we hiked around the lake that we normally kayak in or, in the winter, snow-shoe. At the top we stopped, relaxed, talked and snuggled our boys. Free, beautiful, exercise, puppies, nature, quality time... oui...

I need to buy sunglasses for the pups. I've seen them online. 

Can you see camo-Bing? I spy...

At the end of the night, we dropped the pups off so they could nap and we ventured to a garden center to buy more landscaping "stuff" (my latest project/obsession.) Yay for plants!

 Okay, so the last part of the evening wasn't free but, I needed this stuff!