Intentional Marriages: Date Night

We are so blessed to have my husbands parents living right down the street from us.  They are such a blessing!  They have encouraged us time and time again to take advantage of them being so close and ask them to watch Abigail so we can have a date together.  This past weekend we did just that.  Our budget is still pretty tight so we opted to come back home and have a date night in, but it was just what we needed.

After I dropped off Abbie at grandma and grandpa's house I came back home and Dave had a fire blazing in the fireplace, a pot of coffee brewed with my favorite coffee cup waiting for me to fill, and the Chess Board set up.  We played one round of Chess, and I, being the gracious (insert sore loser here) that I am didn't want to play again after my obviously lacking Chess skillz were beaten to a pulp by my hubby :)

So we discussed other options.  Most of the games we like to play are good group games but we don't have a lot of two player games around.  Oddly enough I started thinking about card games that I played 20 years ago as a child with my sister and one came to mind that I knew we would both enjoy....Speed (according to google it is also known as Spit or Slam).

We played and played and played.  Laughed a lot and really had a great time.  It's one of our new favorites!

Photo Credit:  www.redbookmag.com

What You Need to Play:

1 full deck of cards

How to Play:

• Shuffle the cards and deal out 2 piles of 6.  Face your opponent.  Put these two piles in the middle between you about 3 card widths apart.
• Deal out the rest of the cards equally between you and your opponent.  
• Once cards are all dealt, each player is allowed to have 4 cards in his or her hand at one time.  You don't want the other player to see your cards.  
• When you are both ready, each should flip one card over from the 2 piles in the center of the board and place them next to each other in between the two piles.  
• You can then play your cards numerically in order using the two cards you just turned over as your starting point.  

           Ex:  Player 1 flips over a Jack from center stack and player 2 flips over an Ace from the
                  other center stack.  Player 1 has a ten, a two, a five, and a seven in his hand.  So he
                  then could lay the ten on the jack and the two on the ace (going up or down in
                  numerical order is fine as long as they are in order)

• You can lay as many cards down as you are able.  Keep replenishing your hand as you get rid of them though, but never hold more than 4 at a time.  If you run out of options to play in your hand and you are already holding four you get to sit and graciously :) watch your opponent get rid of cards faster than you...ha!
• Each player must lay down one card at a time as fast as they can.  If both players are trying to play on the same card whomever laid their card down first gets the play.  
•  If both players come to a standstill each flips over another card from the two center piles.  If  the center drawing piles run out, flip over the playing card area and use those to play on (one at a time)
• Whoever runs out of cards first wins!

**This is the version we played but from what I can tell online there are many different variations of the game**

The name of the game is Speed....so get on your game face ladies....and show your hubby your mad playing card skillz!

Have you had a date night lately?  Whether you have a babysitter or not make a date for after the kids go to bed or during nap time and just enjoy spending some quality time with your spouse!

What frugal date nights are a favorite in your home?

Blessings,