Disclaimer: I recieved Amberly’s e-book free of charge as part of her launch team. But I honestly love this book and would have purchased it myself at full price.
Well there’s about a week and a half left of “Date Your Mate Month.” I love this month and I think dating your spouse is a great thing to celebrate.
As Amberly said at the beginning of the month, dating your mate is more than just going on dates every once in a while. It’s about perusing each other. It’s about treating each other like you did before you were married, when you were just dating and were all each other thought about!
Of course, going on dates is a big part of that. I mean, that stage of life is literally called “dating.” But dates don’t have to fit a mold. The word date doesn’t always mean getting dressed up and going out somewhere expensive. But it does always mean you need to be intentional, planned, and different from your every day routine.
According to Dictionary.com (and Amberly’s e-book, Prioritizing Date Night in your Marriage) a date is defined as “a social appointment or engagement arranged beforehand with another person, especially when a romantic relationship exists or may develop.” Arranged beforehand. That’s what makes date night different from every other day of the week or month or year.
So basically, a date could be anything from an at-home movie or game night to an entire weekend getaway.
Pearson and I have enjoyed a few dates this month. The biggest one, of course, would be our weekend trip to Portland, Oregon! On Thursday, when we first got there, we went on a nature walk at a park close to our hotel. This is one of my favorite types of dates because we talk and catch up and connect so well while were on the move and we get to explore and exercise at the same time! After that we just hung out in Hillsboro and went to bed early because Pearson’s interview was the next day.
On Friday, after Pearson’s interview, we got dinner and then drove about an hour and a half out to the coast. The scenery on the drive through the mountains was gorgeous and we sang, talked, and connected along the way. When we got there, we walked along the beach for a bit. It was very romantic and not to mention a fun new experience we had together. Neither of us had ever touched the Pacific Ocean! Going on both long walks and long drives are great date suggestions in Prioritizing Date Night in your Marriage.
Saturday was our fun touristy day. We saw the Nike factory and of course stopped by a Guitar Center in Beaverton. Then we took the train into Portland. Our first stop was Washington Park where we walked about two miles of trails (another walking date) and saw the Vietnam War Memorial, the Rose Garden, and more.
When we got downtown, we were forced to get off the train at an earlier stop than we planned because they were doing construction. And it was terrible timing because right as they were making everybody get off the train in a part of town that had nothing but office buildings we couldn’t get into, it started pouring. We could barely see a few feet in front of us for all the rain. So that was fun. But it didn’t last very long. We spent the rest of the day exploring Portland, sampling good food and wandering around “the largest independent used and new bookstore in the world,” Powell’s Books.
Dancing in the rain and visiting a bookstore are both in Amberly’s e-book so I totally count them as separate dates!
On Sunday we slept in, packed up, checked out of our hotel, and caught our 1:30 pm flight home. Which landed at about 11:00 pm EST. And we were exhausted!
Side Note: Does anybody know what kind of flowers these are? They were EVERYWHERE out there. In several different colors. Both of the pictures above are the same flower (I think). They grow in bunches and look like hydrangeas from a distance, but up close you can tell they’re big, individual flowers. I love them and I’m dying to know what they are!
Some other dates we’ve been in this month include a YouTube date night, a readathon date night (we’re reading Eragon together switching off reading aloud), a food trucks in the park event, and we saw Guardians of the Galaxy volume 2.
You can get Amberly’s e-book, Prioritizing Date Night in your Marriage, for only $7.00 through the end of this month. (It goes up to $10 after Date Your Mate month).
In this e-book, you’ll get…
- Research based reasons you should continue to date your spouse after the two of you get married.
- Benefits that your marriage will enjoy when you make date night a priority.
- Seven tips and suggestions for making date night happen, no matter what obstacles life brings.
- Over 200 ideas to keep date night fresh and fun throughout every stage of your marriage (with explanations – not just a bullet point list).
- Date night ideas to fit any budget, time constraint or other limitations.
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