Year of Dates–December

 

Happy Friday everyone! I hope everyone's week felt a lot faster then mine! I woke up on Tuesday thinking it was Thursday!  Fun!

Now that we are WELL into 2014, I thought I would share with you how our last date of the year went for 2013! It was hard to believe that we did it, we went on a date a month for a whole year! Truthfully, I didn’t know if we could do it. I knew there would be snags but I thought with the busy summer months, that we may end up skipping a month! But, I’m proud that we didn’t! I’m proud that we made our dates a priority!

December was Ryan’s month to plan! When we opened the envelope on December 1st, it was hard to believe that it was probably about a year ago that it was looked at!

Ryan was a little bit worried about this date. He had remembered what he had planned and wasn’t sure that we would be able to complete it 100%.

It says, “Merry Christmas my love, what a good time to do a winter activity. We are going to go for a nice leisurely skate at the Shawville arena for a free skate, then we are going to have a nice supper at Hursty’s where we had our first date lunch. Love you my love what a wonderful year we had of dates, it was amazing and fun.”

First, I got a little choked up reading the note…frigging hormones. Then, I realized why he was nervous. You see, I suck at skating. No matter how many times I try, I always end up falling. Curling? SURE! The footwear for that sport has ice grips! But strap a piece of metal to the bottom of my foot and I cannot keep balanced! With another new (and now round) obstacle in my front to throw me off balance, I was worried.

After talking it over, we decided to pack up our skates and drive around to the smaller outdoor rinks. If they were empty, we would attempt skating with the rule that Ryan was to never let go of my hand.

We drove to 4 different outdoor rinks in our area (Beechgrove, Quyon, Norway Bay AND Shawville) and they were were all busy with hockey players. I didn’t feel comfortable being out on the ice with young boys shooting a puck around and skating circles around me.

The skating portion of our date was a bust and I was kind of relieved. I just never felt 100% confident in my skating abilities to be on the ice.

So, we took the gift certificate that was included in the envelope and headed to one of our favourite local restaurants, Hursty’s!

We are creatures of habit and every time we eat together at Hursty’s, we try to sit in the same spot! I guess now we call it “our” spot and if it’s taken when we are there, we are disappointed! Luckily, it was a quiet Friday night when we went to the restaurant and our spot wasn’t taken!

I ordered the club with poutine on the side and Ryan got chicken fingers with spicy fries! So healthy! ha ha! But, oh so yummy and worth every bite!

We were stuffed after our meal and it had just started snowing! This always means that Ryan will shortly have to go to work! So, we headed straight home and went to bed.

I felt bad that this date didn’t go 100% like Ryan had planned but at that time last year, we had no idea that I would be pregnant. We did make an effort to include the skating but I think it was better we never laced up.

With all the hustle and bustle of getting ready for Christmas we would never usually have thought to take time out to have a date together. Our “Year of Dates” forced us to put down the wrapping paper and spend some quality time alone together.

It wasn’t a super fancy date but it made us slow down during a notoriously busy month and enjoy each other’s company. Last date of 2013, complete!

Like I said above, I can’t believe we made it a whole year with doing a successful date every month! Some months were easier to accomplish then others! Some months we REALLY didn’t want to do our dates because we felt so busy with other obligations. But, we surged ahead with the date and afterwards would be so glad!

Each month was so different but the end result was the same, pausing life for a moment and enjoying one another!

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October and November.

Happy Friday!

xo