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,

Intentional Marriages: Date Night

Dave and I were recently discussing our date nights....wait a minute?  What date nights?  Oh they happened every now and again but most date nights were really just us laying on the couch watching reruns of our favorite TV show on Netflix   This isn't bad, but I can't say it was really us being intentional on nurturing our marriage.  Every couple is different so please don't think that our recipe is the recipe for everyone but I do encourage you to discuss and pray with your spouse on specifics for your marriage?  What do you need to do to connect with one another on a regular basis?  What would help you grow more closely together?  For us we decided that we wanted a Friday Night Date Night.  Now we have a small child so how does that work?  Well we are blessed to have a pair of grandparents down the street, and in other times of our marriage we have swapped date nights with people in our small group which worked out great also.  Oh and you also have to remember...I didn't say every Friday night would be spent on a date outside of our home....nope!  We decided we wanted to have 2 date nights outside of the home a month and 2 date nights in (if we can swing it but at least one date outside of the home!).  Abbie goes to bed at 7 so that means we can have our own date night after she goes to bed even when we are home!  So for last Fridays Date Night we chose to build a fire in the fireplace, treat ourselves to some French Press coffee and play chess (new secret about me I'm kind of a nerd at heart or maybe my husband turned me into one....before him I'd never even watched Star Wars or Lord of the Rings.

Two opposing sides:  I will say I was white (the more angelic of the two of us...ha!)

I proudly can say that I won.  That rarely happens.  Dave typically is pretty good at chess!  

Our date was delightful and fun and intentional, and so needed.  

Would you join us friends?  Would you challenge yourselves to pray together about what being intentional in your own marriages means and then do it?

Dating after having children is especially hard and you just have to make it a priority.  Our marriages are so important, even more important than being a mother or father to our child...so we must keep it a priority.  

So now....go pray!   And please share with the rest of us what you and your spouse decide, cause I'm sure it could be an encouragement to so many others!

Do you have any favorite date night ideas for in your home or outside of your home??

Blessings,