Date Night

This week I got to go on a date with my hubby! It really is an unusual occurrence for us, as I know it is for other friends with young children. So definitely a highlight ... whatever we get up to!

When we were first married we tried to have a date night every week. We would take it in turns to decide what we the evening would entail. At the beginning we were students, so the evenings were fairly low-budget (or no-budget) but then when we finished studying and were earning real money, we were able to go out more for dinner or to the cinema or occasionally away for the night.

Then along came the munchkins and life was never the same again ... as I'm sure other parents can totally appreciate. Not only that but we lived away from family and good friends both in the UK and then here ... so date nights suddenly became few and far between. One of the sacrifices of moving around the world as a missionary ... having to find and trust people to look after your kids, building up the trust of the girls to be left with someone else ... and then having the money to actually do something.

We have been privileged to have a lot of friends and family from the UK come and visit us over the last three years that we've lived here. During each visitor's stay we have tried to fit in a date night of some sort as well. We've been able to have some meals out but there isn't much to do in town once you've finished eating so we often find ourselves walking hand-in-hand around Walmart afterwards! Just to maximise our alone time before reluctantly heading home and taking up the baton of parenthood once again! (We love our girlies, really we do ... but a couple of hours off, is wonderful too!)

On Wednesday, under a gorgeous sunset (see above), my hubby took me out on one of the most memorable of our dates yet! The first since in a couple of months, since our last visitor from the UK. We went to the County Fair to watch the Rough Trucks contest, using our free tickets from manning the gates earlier in the week! To top it all, Mark even bought me some deep fried oreo's ... a fair delicacy I had yet to try and which to be honest tasted really yummy!!

When you think of a 'date' with your loved one, this may not be the first and most romantic thing that comes to mind. It was however extremely cultural and a really fun evening. We got to see some good friends there and thanks to Grandma and Gramps, we had a few hours to ourselves, snuggled together on the grandstand! I loved having some hubby time in the amongst the hustle and bustle of everything else that's been going on ... not sure how he's going to top this one though!