Along with its other amicable qualities, summer is a time of adventure, spontaneity, and romance (or at least it can be). However, one truth I’ve learned about marriage is that it’s a little too easy to fall into a routine that you rarely (if ever) deviate from, especially when it comes to date nights. I decided that that’s why there are some things I miss about my high school dating days (about the only things)–back then, I seemed to be up for anything when it came to dates, the ideas tended to be a little more original, and I wasn’t afraid to be a little silly.
Last night, when I was up at 2:30 in the morning cleaning out our spare bedroom because my brain wouldn’t stop buzzing, I came across a list of almost 800 date ideas that I’d received way back when I was 16 and just starting out on my dating career.
Some of the ideas were just too fun NOT to share, so I propose this:
The Summer Dating Challenge!
How It Works:
1. You pick any number of the 10 date ideas listed below and make them happen
2. Blog about it
3. Leave me a comment or drop me an email ([email protected]) so I can check out your summer dating adventure
Let the romancing begin!
10 Summer Date Ideas
1. Bake cakes (or just two cake layers), then frost them blindfolded, with a spatula. Take pictures of your creations, then do a little cake-feeding (or cake-smashing!) to each other. Or, if that’s not your thing (feeding each other, that is), just eat the cake with tall glasses of milk. Whatevs.
2. Go to a local farmers’ market (check out Local Harvest’s website for a location near you), and give each of you $10 (for a total of $20 between the two of you). After walking around for awhile to enjoy the general splendor, split up, and follow these two rules: one, spend $5 on something that you can take back home and make for breakfast together, and two, spend the other $5 on a special treat or trinket you think your spouse would enjoy. Then go home and make breakfast together with your finds and eat it out on your porch/patio.
3. Go to a dollar store and pick up two coloring books and a box of crayons. Take them to a nearby ice cream parlor and color them while eating your ice cream. Ask a stranger (preferably a child) to judge whose coloring is better.
4. Go rent a canoe from a local outdoor rec shop (here in Logan, USU’s ORC offers an all-day canoe rental for only $18 for students or $25 for anyone else). Take it out to a lake you’ve never been to before and have a day filled with sun and spray (don’t forget the sunscreen!).
5. Check out a free outdoor movie or concert sponsored by your community (here in Logan, all community events are posted on the local library’s webpage).
6. Drive to the next town over (or, if you’ve been there a lot, drive a few towns over) and stop to eat at the first eatery you come to that’s locally run. Make friends with your waiter and ask him/her to recommend a dessert stop (elsewhere) that you could go check out after your meal. In other words, it’s kind of like a shortened progressive dinner that combines the thrill of new places with the lower expense of only going to two eateries.
7. Go shopping and see who can find the weirdest toy for the other person for under $5. Then go play with the toys.
8. Choose a fancy type of candy (like a truffle or something) that you normally would never make. Go buy the ingredients for it, then make it together. Arrange several of the candies on two plates, then go deliver them to two other couples you don’t know very well. Hopefully, you’ll find yourself chatting with the other two couples and making new friends, but even if you don’t, you still both did a good turn, so it’s a win-win.
9. Buy tickets to see a show that you’d never normally go and see (the opera, an unusual musical group, etc.). Leave the tickets in the book your spouse is reading (or propped up somewhere else where they will see them and be surprised). Don’t forget to dress up in your finest when the big night comes!
10. Rent a tandem bike (about $35-40/day, at least in Logan) and hit the town. Don’t forget your helmets!
And there you have it! Do you have any more unusual summer date ideas? Which one of these ideas stick out to you?
P.S. In case you’ve been under a rock and haven’t heard, Google Reader is being cancelled next week, which means that if you follow me via Google Friend Connect (the little thing on the side that shows Google followers), you’ll no longer see any new posts in your feed. Therefore, I’d love it if you continued to follow me through Bloglovin’ (click on the link at right).
