Date night

It's a fairly common thing that when you hear advice about marriage, one recommendation is to try to have a set date night once a week.  When we were broke students, that didn't happen.  We did dates once in a while, but not often.  It happened more frequently once Husband graduated, but let's face it.  It takes some effort to find a babysitter and go out once a week.  So it was pretty sporadic.  Usually we'd just count watching our favorite shows on tv together as our date.  Ta da.  We're not exactly hopeless romantics, Husband and I.  But during a time when we were both just kind of struggling, a good Bishop emphasized this advice and told us it would help with our individual struggles and help our marriage.  Not that anything was in serious trouble, but we were just struggling.  (He even offered to watch our crazy crew of kids for us so we could go!)  Anyway, we've put that advice to the test.  We manage to go out almost every week now.  Husband considers it just as much his responsibility as mine to put something together for us.  Sometimes it doesn't happen because we have family visiting or sick kids or what-not, so we do just make an extra effort to spend an hour or two watching something together that we enjoy.  But for the most part, we make it happen.  And I love it!  It's really been good for us.  We both need a break and a reminder of why we got married in the first place - we're in love!  This weekend Husband decided that he had a few unused gift cards that needed to be used.  So we tried a new restaurant and then headed to REI and Scheels to see what caught our fancy.  Nothing spectacular or super romantic, but we just loved being together.  We found a really cool LED lantern for camping/emergency supplies, a new pocket knife, and telescopic marshmallow roasters.  Yup.  Telescopic.  They are super small, but extend out 42" and instead of having to turn it by hand, it has a gear operated by your thumb that turns the roaster for you.  Seriously, we were both in awe.  Perhaps we roast too many hot dogs and marshmallows, but man we were excited!  I love being with someone who gets excited about silly stuff with me.  And I'm glad we listened to our Bishop - it really has made things even happier!