This giveaway is now closed.
Next up, a book that you may have heard about, if you’ve been around here for any length of time: A Simple Marriage. This is the book I wrote last year aimed at helping you experience more in marriage and life.
Here’s what you’ll get with this book:
- Some foundational principles that are present in every marriage and how to use these principles to your advantage.
- An understanding of where you currently are in your relationship.
- The tools and steps to help create the relationship you desire.
- All the motivation and energy necessary to create a marriage out of this world.
- A spouse who is totally on board and will fulfill your every wish and desire.
Okay, so the last two are a bit of a stretch.
This book is specifically written to assist you in experiencing more in marriage, with your current spouse.
For this giveaway, 2 readers have the chance to win a copy of this book.
How To Enter
Leave a comment on this post answering this question: What’s one of your favorite date ideas with your spouse?
For a second entry, Tweet about this giveaway on Twitter. Be sure to use the url of this post and @simplemarriage so I can see it. Or to make it even easier – use the Retweet button at the bottom of this post.
This giveaway will end February 13th at Midnight CST.
Check back tomorrow for another giveaway.
We are so standard, a lovely dinner out and a few glasses of wine really give us time to talk over the day/week and reconnect at a slower pace.
I’d love to read the book! My favorite dates actually includes volunteering. My husband and I both like giving back to our community, and we find that it make us feel good and learn more about each other during the process. One of my favorite Valentine’s day “dates” was spent with him serving food at a soup kitchen.
My favourite date with my husband is a trip to Chapters (Canadian equivalent to Barnes and Noble). We don’t have one in our town, so we have to make a special trip to the city. We spend some time finding books and magazines on our own that we are interested in, then we regroup, sit down on the floor together somewhere, and read. Separate, but together. Usually we get a cup of Starbucks while we’re at it. Then on the drive home we talk about what we learned. We rarely buy the books we read.
My husband did this with me for our very first date and I loved it so much it’s always been special to me.
Our favorite dates are going out to eat. We love to eat and talk! Or we just go for a walk.
I really enjoy going for a walk alone w/ my hubby. Holding hands and strolling along is a luxury that we don’t get do enjoy often because most of our walks include at a baby in a stroller and a runaway toddler. It’s easier to talk about difficult stuff when you’re taking a walk.
We love to be outside so we pick a hike, usually a day hike that has a view, and find somewhere to sit and have lunch and talk about whatever comes to our minds. We have found it to be a good way to get away and being outdoors surounded by nature seems to be a safe setting for us to have deep and/or difficult conversations. I wouldn’t trade our dates for the world!
Our favorite date used to be going for a walk. Now with two little ones it is hard to even do that!
Before children our perfect date was a day of rock climbing together. Four kids and a couple years later, and we’re perfectly content to share a lovely dinner together with a bottle of wine at our house after the girls have all gone to bed!
My husband and I are at a time in our lives when periods alone together is a rarity. Hands down our favorite date is sending the kids out so we can we can crawl back under the covers. We find that we are often so sleepy or rushed that we don’t have the time we need to really reconnect. So an afternoon in bed is exactly what the doctor ordered. (TMI?)
My wife and I like to go to a Thai restaurant. With 2 kids (11 and 9) just getting out without them is the romantic part!
Honestly, as dorky as it sounds, our favourite date night thing is to just curl up with pizza, beer, and some TV. We don’t get a whole lot of time to ourselves and our weekends are always busy, so it’s such a wonderful relief to just be us in our own house and on our own time.
When we do fit in a date night, it’s usually a movie and dinner. But my favorite was a long bike ride and a picnic at the end of the trail.
We loved window shopping when we were dating and going out for coffee. We were actually talking about making that part of our Valentine date this weekend. It’s something we haven’t done since having our daughter and we miss it. Errands without purpose are relaxing for us.
I love going to a particular beach with my husband. It’s my favorite place in the entire world. He even proposed to me there because he knew how special it is for me
But I also love grocery shopping with him. It’s quiet and we just get to enjoy each other’s company.
Pre-kids we used to take long walks and night and talk as we went, but now we make do with renting a movie and having a few treats after the little ones are in bed.
Not a movie! Why go out if we’re not going to talk? I love to walk and talk and look.
For Valentine’s day we always sneak away to this little italian place nearby and catch a movie and grab a drink or two. A usual date night is staying at home alone, cooking dinner together and catching up on our favorite TV shows. We like playing board games and just about any card game out there.
My husband and I are working on getting our USPA A License in skydiving. We started last fall. It takes about 45 minutes to drive to the drop zone, so we enjoy the drive time early on Saturday mornings as a chance to talk and get ourselves worked up to jump! During the winter when we can’t jump, we’ve had to settle for dinner at home or at a restaurant for our date night.
PS – Corey – not everyone has Twitter, do you have a second opportunity for people like us? Maybe email, like you have in the past for other things?
we love going out for sushi (or making it at home) and just talking, enjoying the time together.
One of our favorite dates is to go on a picnic. Load up the basket (we have a picnic set that we put together for cheap a few years back), cook a fresh meal and head to wherever our destination is for the day. The only extra cost is the gas to get wherever we’re going, and the new setting makes any meal extra special!
I love sentimental dates. In fact, my husband and I had one today. The kids were in school so we went into the city to do some shopping. Rather than grab a bite at the food court, we drove a bit out of our way to a hole-in-the-wall vietnamese restaurant that my husband said reminded him of our first date. The ambiance was awful and the food was great. It was perfect.
We decided that this would count as our Valentine’s dinner and the pressure is off for the Big Day. We can relax and enjoy it with the kids.
My husband and I love having dinner dates. We don’t even have to be out at a restaurant – just put the kids to bed and enjoy a slower paced meal and time to actually concentrate on our conversation.
We like to go fishing. When we started dating, we fished more than once a week usually. Our first kiss was on a fishing trip, so it always brings back those memories.
Our dates are super simple but great as long as the kids aren’t involved and we have some quality time that just equals a great date:
- I love to go out for coffee and then off to do some window shopping or bookstore browsing
- I love just driving around as we are ‘stuck’ together in the car and that just allows for some great quality time
With three little ones at home, we also have to work hard to find time to re-connect on a regular basis. Our favorite dates include quick overnights without the kids in tow. It doesn’t happen too often, but allows us to time focus on one another without any interruptions.
I love cooking dinner together, then eating it in front of the fireplace while watching a TV show or movie.
My recent favorite has been when we take the baby to Panera Bread, share a soup, and then split a couple of dessert pastries.
One of my favs is just making homemade pizza and curling up together and watching a movie.
We like doing things that involve being quiet and able to talk. During the week we’ll take a walk with our 2 dogs to the library – it’s about 2 miles round trip. One of my favorite dates took place when we lived in a city, but near a small town with its own tiny airport and runway. I didn’t know about it, but he used to go there when life was stressful. During a particularly hard day, he took me out there. We just sat and watched the planes land for a while, together. It was just what we needed, and it was really cool.
We love finding new restaurants to eat at. But sometimes it’s hard to afford a babysitter as often as we’d like. So we’ll plan a date at home after our 3 little guys go to bed.
lately our most common date nights are pizza and a movie while our little bean rolls joyfully around the floor. My favorite “dates” are when we actually go to bed at the same time and we stay up talking until one of us becomes too incoherent to continue and we drift to sleep in each others arms.
We take our kids kite-flying. Afterwards we all lay on a big blanket and watch the clouds. It’s awesome.
Our date nights are sadly few and far between. But what I think we both long for are quiet times to eat and talk. So I think the best date night would be dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. But late in the evening. When the restaurant is quieter. Peaceful. Because when you had a BUSY and ACTIVE 5 year old, peace is something that isn’t always there. It’s ALWAYS missed.
Diane
My favorite “dates” are when we plan to wake up early to spend time together alone before our daughter wakes up and our days begin. Having that connection with each other as we begin our days really makes a difference.
I’ve always wanted to do a scavenger hunt in NYC! Or a day of hiking,which we do sometimes, too!
We get season tickets to the symphony every year and get my sister signed up to babysit for every concert. We even try to get her to keeps the kids over night now and then.
We love to do a simple date to the local library… pick out some favorites and discuss ideas, dream about our next house remodel or learn new things together.
My favorite dates include doing something new/out of the ordinary for us… ice skating, staying in a local hotel overnight and enjoying room service, catching free live music at local lodges/bars…
we like walking around vinyl stores adding to our collection- then on at-home date nights after the kids are asleep we listen to the records together (with tea or chocolate or both
).
We love to go to a hot springs, and have dinner after wards.
Our favorite past times that I guess could be called “dates” are short roadtrips, usually lasting about 1-3 hours to a certain destination. Often we just drive to an outlet and spend the whole day there and end our exhausting shopping trip at a buffet (his favorite). Other times we might go a little further like San Diego or Malibu or San Pedro to enjoy local delights. My favorite Saturday was last August when we went to a secluded beach in Malibu and it was really foggy (I dont like sun) and dreamy…
A favorite date idea I have is to spend a three day weekend totally alone with my husband in a cabin in the woods or at a beach house. I envision this would be an opportunity for us to focus solely on each without the distractions of work, tv, computers and life in general.
We have always enjoyed playing a game together, whether it is cards, a board game, or a trivia game. We also make up random games, like “name a favorite thing for each letter of the alphabet.” I think the conversations we have on our dates keep our relationship feeling fresh because we’re always discovering something new about each other.
My favorite date idea is also among the most romantic–sitting on the back of the pick up looking up at the stars, covered up with a blanket, enjoying God’s creation, and just being together.
While nothing beats a bed and breakfast on the beach, a more frequently loved date is a round of mini-golf. We did this often when we dated in high-school, and 13 years later, it always brings us back to our playful, butterflies in the stomach, kind of romance.
We love to go out to see a performance. We dressed up all fancy and went to see Celtic Woman and it was an amazing experience. We are saving our pennies and hoping to see the stage performance of Mary Poppins next.
My husband and I moved into our first recently which is near a ton of farms. We love taking a Sunday drive to visit various farms – especially the alpaca and llama ranch. It’s so fun to get to talk to the rancher and feed the animals – and it’s free!
For us the best thing would be an evening after the kids are asleep to sit down, no tv, and just talk.
Our favorite date is simple. We like to go out to eat and have a few glasses of wine without the kids. It’s a real treat for us!
We have fun playing arcade games, silly as it sounds. It gives us time to compete and win goofy prizes we usually give the kiddos.
Just getting the chance to have a quiet dinner together to relax and talk without the interruptions of work and kids.
We have a hill nearby, it’s mostly a park, that’s a good romantic walk. For colder times, we prefer a good film, some games (eg. Dominion, you may google it), or a just a nice, long talk.
We prefer going somewhere outdoors; taking a hike, or even just a walk around the neighborhood.
sushi and a movie at home
a hike up camelback mountain in scottsdale w/ a picnic lunch at the top.