Date Nights in California

Amy & Mark’s Great Date

So Mark and I decided to spice up our date nights and do something a little different.

Thanks to Buckhead Church’s Married Life group we decided to try…The Great Date Experiment

We’ve only completed date #1, so we’re a little behind but never-the-less…We’re dating.

So date number one had us starting out with cheap appetizers (Mark gets excited about anything that has the word “cheap” or “free” in front of it, so I didn’t have to bribe too much). So of course we set out for cheap appetizers and ended up in McDonalds sharing a biggie fry (Don’t tell Granddad!)

Next we walked to a souvenir shop. (The Great Date Experiment said to go to WalMart or Target, but alas we would have to drive 45 minutes to get to one of those, so souvenir shop it was.) We had $2 to go into the store, split up and buy something for the other person. I of course asked, “Well, what if what I want to buy you is more than $2, Sweetie?” And Mark replied, after putting his wallet away, “Amy. $2 is the MAX amount you can spend…let’s see how much change both of us can bring back. The person that brings the most back, wins.”

Now, let me just tell you…Mark made his choice in like 15 seconds and he was out the door waiting on a nearby bench for me to come join him. I however, made 985,982,001 choices before I walked up to the counter to pay with my $2. When I walked up to the counter the sweet, old, Iranian man behind the counter asked me if I worked anywhere. I told him that, yes, I did have a job but my husband was a full time grad student and he needed a job. The sweet, old, Iranian man said, “We are 4 men and 1 woman here. I want YOU to work here. Not him.” Bahahahahaha!

So I went outside (holding his prize behind my back) and I asked Mark, “Sooooo, how much change did YOU bring back Mister?” He said, “$1.01, what about you Missy?” And I smiled as big as I could and said, “.71 cents and a FLIPPIN JOB OFFER!”

I got him Cheetos because they’re his favorite snack and his friends at school make fun of him for eating them in his lunch so he doesn’t take them anymore…so I bought him some! Mark bought me sunflower seeds because back when we were dating I taught him how to appropriately eat sunflower seeds. His previous method of eating them was just to chew them up, shell and all. This makes for an unpleasant experience the next morning so he was happy to be taught how to eat them the right way. Good gift babe.

Then it was off to dessert! I looooove ice cream so we walked to our nearest Italian restaurant and shared some Neapolitan ice cream with pistachio’s and cherries. MMMMMM! We answered questions like, “I look at you and say wow because _____” There were a few tears at this section, I’m not going to lie.

This was such an easy date night to do! Mark and I decided we wanted to walk everywhere…So we walked to McDonalds, walked to pizza place, walked to souvenir shop, walked to ice cream and then walked back home. It was GREAT to be outside and to have all that uninterrupted time to talk to one another.

So here’s my encouragement to you – it’s easy. Go start the GREAT DATE EXPERIMENT!

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