Surprise date night!

Warning: long post. If you want, skip the first 2 paragraphs, they're just explaining the background as to why this night happened.

About a week ago I was being a little bit pouty over the fact that I do not have a romantic husband. Maybe some of you have felt like this before so you'll know what I'm talking about, the rest of you...just appreciate the fact that you married the 1 romantic guy on the planet! Bobby's amazing at lots of things and shows me he loves me by, among other things, doing things around the house, (fixing the car, taking out the trash, cooking dinners, putting up shelves, etc.) going to work so that I can stay at home with Tyler, taking care of Tyler at night so I can go out with the girls, and setting aside time every night to spend with just me. (Can you tell we've had the "languages of love" talk many times?! Ha Ha!) But this particular night I was just having one of my "moments" and was wishing that just once he would do something crazy sweet like write me a sweet note, bring home some flowers, surprise me with something, or even do something as simple as tell me I'm beautiful (this only happens when I ask him to tell me!). Now granted, he will do something like get me flowers or leave a cute note in the car for me, but it happens-on average-once a year. I'm wishing for something more like once a month-yea, whatever, I'm greedy!

So anyways, I'm trying not to get grumpy about this characteristic of his because it's who he is, and I will not be able to (and should not try) to change him, I instead try to think of all the ways he showed me that day through "non-verbal" cues (since that's his "language of love") that he loves me, but am still not pacified. I need some good old fashioned romance! I decided that these feelings were all stemming from the fact that we haven't had any alone time since my birthday in July (like quality, romantic time) and we just needed something to help us re-connect. I knew that Bobby wouldn't in a million years be thinking any of these things and that if I felt something needed to change it would be up to me to make that happen. And as much as I hate that I have to be the one to always bring stuff like this up, I realize that if I want to be happy in the marriage (and one of those things that keeps me happy is romance) I can't just sit around and stew about how unfortunate it is that my husband isn't romantic, I have to be the one to do something about it. It kind of stinks, but that's just the way it is. (And maybe, just maybe, the more often I do these things for him, the more often he'll do them for me...I can hope right?!) Once I made up my mind about this, I started planning.

I wanted to do something that would 1)be a total surprise and catch him off guard. 2)give us quality alone time and 3)be memorable. I knew that we wouldn't be able to get a babysitter so it would have to be something we could do at home after Tyler went to bed. That puts a lot of limits on any kind of "date", but it was SO fun to try and think of creative ways to pull this off. Anyways, this is what I came up with for last Fri. night:

Tyler goes to bed at 8:00. After we say our family prayers, I leave the room and Bobby rocks Tyler and sings to him for about 2-3 min. During that time I ran out to our car with a pair of "date" clothes, which I had meticulously ironed earlier that day (I knew he would be wearing B-ball shorts and a tee shirt b/c that's always what he changes into when he comes home from work), some cologne, shoes, his wallet, phone and this note:

(click on it if you can't read it)


After he's done singing to Tyler he comes in our bedroom where we read scriptures. I ran in the front door(from putting everything in the car) right as he was walking out of Tyler's room and told him I had left my cell phone in the car and had to go get it. (Yes, that was part of my genius plan and I actually did leave my phone in the car so I would have this excuse just in case I wasn't back by the time he was done with Tyler) And then I said, "oh shoot, I forgot I left the camera in the car too and it's just sitting on the front seat. Could you run out there and grab it before we read so that we don't forget to get it?" (this was the only thing I could think of to get him to go out to the car-I knew he wouldn't be okay with leaving the camera in the car overnight b/c he's real particular about stuff like that) I was just praying that he wouldn't say that we should just read first and then do it because the To Go order had to be picked up by 8:30! Thankfully he said, "ya sure" and walked out the door. I locked it behind him and got busy. (side note-I should've been an actress, I can't believe I totally pulled that off without giving anything away. I was so excited that I just wanted to bust up laughing, but instead pulled off the perfect whiny voice so he didn't suspect a thing!)

While he was changing (there's a laundry room bathroom right by where we parked the car-also part of my genius plan) and getting our food I got the house ready. I changed into my "date" clothes, put on a little perfume (I don't think I've even worn perfume since I've had Tyler), set the table with candles and Hershey kisses, put our Sparkling Cider in a make-shift ice-bucket(yes I had to hide the cider and the ice since we don't ever buy either of those things), got out our "fancy" glasses, and set up the ipod (with a specially prepared playlist for the evening). Everything was perfect I was SO excited. He came home exactly when I finished lighting the last candle, I tell you, it was like a scene from a movie. It was perfect! It was so cute how giddy he was that I planned this whole thing. It totally made everything worth it! Here are a few pictures from the night:

Picture with flash on (no, our kitchen table does NOT always sit in the middle of the kitchen like that, it's usually pushed off to the side)


flash off so you can see what it actually looked like with just the candle light


YUMMY food!






Not very flattering shot, but the only one we got with the self-timer before the camera died.


At the end of our meal, I gave him a little surprise gift:


The night was perfectly fabulous and went exactly as I'd hoped it would. Even though I'm the one that had to plan it, I have to be honest... it was almost as fun planning this surprise as it would have been to receive it! I love my Bobby, even if we don't always speak the same "language"!