It's A Date!

While taking a break from recital preparation duties today, I got excited again about our journey to improving our credit, saving and buying a home. Matt was excited as well but again said to me, "Honey, I'm glad you're excited but what are some things you're looking forward to that don't involve a long timeline, houses and babies?" So that got me thinking. I've always been thinking husband, house, baby...I mean literally, I used to have binders with magazine clippings of these things starting in middle school. I fell in love with Matt...we live in a great place...and now he's my husband! It's so hard for me to not just automatically jump to the next things...houses and babies. 

(I'm from a small town everyone...this is just what you do. It's taking me some time to understand it doesn't HAVE to be that way).

Instead...I'm going to focus on dates! 

As my Mother-in-Law has been saying lately, our new Lanese Family Motto..."Making Memories"! Matt gave me complete freedom to plan away. He actually told me that for once, I'm allowed to plan ahead! Say what?! I'm so excited! So plan I did! 

I just found a ton of date ideas via Pinterest and have extremely fun and mostly free dates planned for the whole rest of our 1st year being married! I actually planned a free date at home for every Friday through August. (I realize that other plans will come along and that not all of these dates will happen as planned now, but it's fun to be ready for them and to look forward to them!) A date or two a week through the end of August! Guaranteed fun! Being that we have now lived together for 3+ years, sometimes it's hard to have things feel new and exciting. Like they say, marriage takes work. I think this is exactly what everyone is talking about. : )

Here are some of the ideas I have on our calendar. Of course, when we do these fun dates I'll blog about them and about where I found the idea (well, at least the appropriate bloggable ones, hehe). We are newlyweds...

*At Home Comedy Club (Madlibs, YouTube comedians, Laffy Taffy)

*Chinese Date Night (chinese food, chopsticks, eating on a blanket on the floor with mood lighting)

*Air Hockey Tournament at our local arcade (we've been doing these since we lived in FL)

*Wine Tasting (we've never done before)

*Matt and Chelsea's Pizzeria complete with chefs hats, wine and a checkered table clothe!

*Slumber Party in the living room with a fort :)

*Love Scrabble and Lovopoly same games with love words and love stuff (insert barf sound here lol)

*Drive-In Theater we discovered about 30 minutes from here

*Bowling (wish we went more because we love it and it's not too expensive)

*Christmas in July (go all out in our apartment one day to surprise Matt lol)

*Movies in the park (literally...bring a blanket and laptop to a park)

There are tons more! It's going to be so much fun! NOW I definitely have a ton to look forward to and it all involves spending time with my hot boyfriend ; )! What could be better? Um...nothing. 

And being that we want to stay on a super tight budget so we can save more, most of these dates are perfect! Of course we'll splurge here and there, but this just shows we don't have to go on all these crazy expensive vacations I originally wanted us to go on for our "Before Baby" time. We'll have just as much fun with these!! : )

XOXO,