12 Date Ideas For Spring

Hey, we’re Aaron and Jennifer Smith, your hosts of the Marriage After God Podcast, Do you ever get stuck in a rut, when it comes to pursuing your spouse?

Maybe you’ve been on autopilot for too long. Maybe you found yourself recently trying to just coast through the last bit of winter, or perhaps you and your spouse have been in a season of disconnection, and you just aren’t sure where to pick up.

Today, we hope to inspire you to creatively think about the next season of your marriage.

And just like being on the cusp of spring, we hope today’s conversation gives you fresh eyes for your marriage, and for the adventures that await.

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Spring is upon us.

Upon us.

I love spring. It’s one of my favorite times of the year.

Why?

Why? I don’t know. It just feels like fresh air, fresh, crisp, clean air, warmer days, sunlight.

It’s all good.

Well for us, we just have this constant snow lately. It’s March, and it’s snowing, and we’re like, “Okay, we’re ready for some warmer weather.” Elliot’s just waiting. He always looks at the temperature gauge, and he’s like, “It went up one degree.” The moment it gets to 38, 40 degrees, he’s outside.

He loves it.

He’s like, “I just want to go outside. I want to play.” He wants a little bit of heat. I think his favorite time of the year is spring/summer, too.

So, actual spring starts on Edie’s birthday. It’s March 20th.

March 20th.

So cool.

How old is she going to be?

She’s going to be three.

Three.

Just crazy, our baby.

If everyone’s wondering why I don’t know, I have five kids, and I get all their ages mixed up. So, shameless over here.

I also heard that first day of spring is a good time to set your alarms to start your gardens.

Oh, really?

Gardening is awesome.

Do you have to do starters inside the house?

Yeah.

Because we’ll probably still get snow in April.

Our growing season is very short where we live.

Last year, we got snow in April, and I was like, “Okay, snow. We need some grass. That’s what I need.” I’m starting to see the grass, because some of the snow’s melting. But man.

One of my favorite things about spring, too, is when the tulips and daffodils start popping up, it’s the first bit of color after a very dead winter.

I just thought about, didn’t you plant bulbs?

I did.

On our little mountain, on the side of our house?

Over there, and then, also, in the backyard we have grass and then we’ve got some space with trees and then a chicken coop.

Did you plant there too?

I planted bulbs.

Oh, that’s why you didn’t want the chickens digging them up.

That’s going to be cool when those things start popping up. Will they eat them if they start growing? Do chickens eat them?

I think they eat everything.

Oh, no, we’ll have to put a fence or something around that.

Well, before we move on, we don’t have to apologize that we didn’t come last week, right, that we didn’t show up?

I know.

We didn’t tell you guys.

No one said anything. I didn’t get any messages. But we missed a week.

We just needed a little break. A wee little break. And it was good for us and we just didn’t realize how busy the week had gotten.

We actually planned on recording and something happened. I can’t remember what it is, but it didn’t happen. But anyways, we’re good. We’re back.

So sorry.

We’re going live. So we missed one week in March, but you know what, there’s five weeks in March.

That’s what I was thinking.

We have a grace week.

We had a grace week.

We have a grace week.

Okay, moving on. Daffodils. I have a favorite poem, so I wanted to read it.

By the way, I didn’t know this was your favorite poem.

Well, it’s not my favorite poem, but it’s one of them. I don’t know why, it’s just very colorful to me. But it’s by William Wordsworth and I thought today’s episode about just being inspired in your marriage and coming out of a colder, darker season into one that’s lighter and refreshing and romantic.

Specifically lighter because the sun’s coming up earlier it seems like.

All the reasons.

The days are getting longer.

I thought it would be creative and fun to share a poem and just kind of spark those, I don’t know.

Spring vibes.

Spring vibes. Okay, so here it goes. “I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high over veils and hills, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils. Beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine and twinkle on the Milky Way, they stretched a never ending line along the margin of a bay. 10,000 saw I at a glance tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced, but they outdid the sparkling waves in glee. A poet could not but be gay in such a jocund company. I gazed and gazed, but little thought, what wealth the show to me had brought for oft, when on my couch I lie in vacant or in pensive mood, they flash upon that inward eye, which is the bliss of solitude. And then my heart with pleasure fills and dances with the daffodils.”

Oh, that’s pretty. It also reminds me of, I mean we’re going to bring up some scripture about spring, but just how it says that God clothed the flowers of the field more extravagantly than Solomon himself, and how much more he will, he take care of us is his children. And then so if you can see something so beautiful and as the flowers in the field, God takes care of us better than that even spiritually, physically, in every way actually.

I love it and I love that so often in life or maybe not so often in life, we get these experiences where they are very vibrant in color or touch all the senses and then life moves into some modes that aren’t so colorful or vibrant. And we have the…

Eventually the pedals wilt.

But we have the memory of those times to carry us through. And I like that ending there that it leaves you thinking about and having a heart full because you remember what it was like to view it.

Maybe that’s a good little ideas to look at the good times in our life with fondness to remember the things that God’s brought us through. So when we’re in those hard seasons, we can look back and be like, well, we’ve had good seasons and now we’re in a hard one. And that’s okay.

Well, especially in marriage, we need to be the person that reminds each other. You’ve reminded me often, Hey…

How it feels right now is not always how it is.

Remember the good. Remember this. Remember that.

That’s true.

I like that.

So remember the spring and summer seasons.

Love your marriage.

Because then fall and winter is going to come.

You need those memories to…

Because there’s snow.

… sustain you.

I’m a little bitter about the snow. I’m just going to keep bringing it up.

Don’t be better. Every season has its purpose and we need those snow.

For a little bit longer, I hope. So we’re getting into warmer weather, flowers as we’re talking about going to be blossoming, baby animals. What we’ll start probably seeing a bunch of little baby deer.

I did see some.

Did you?

Yeah. They were crossing the street and I had to slow down.

Oh, it is dangerous.

It was at night.

But we do tend to see them. Last year I have video of it, a little baby deer in the snow. It was the first time they ever saw snow. Oh, actually it was the beginning of this winter.

The kids still talk about how it was printing.

It was the first snow of the season and this little baby deer must have never seen it before. And it was in our backyard running and stopping and then hopping to the side and then stopping it was playing in the snow. And so we’re probably going to see more of that because all these baby deer are going to be born, so.

Cool.

I’m excited for that.

Okay. Proverbs 16:15. In the light of a king space there is life and his favor is the clouds that bring the spring rain.

So king, we could probably assume this is an allegory or a symbolism of our King Jesus. He brings spring rain, there’s light in his face. The Bible actually describes Jesus’ face as light or as the sun. And so that’s beautiful.

And I like that it’s a good thing to be drenched and down poured, just waiting for that spring rain to come and wash everything away and make it sparkly clean.

Well, it also meant prosperity. Like, oh, the rains are coming. That means we’re going to get crops and food and be able to sell and trade. So it’s a lot of good stuff with spring.

Cool.

Spring’s a long four season.

I wanted to share that verse.

It could be because it had to do with spring.

Deuteronomy 32:2 says, let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants, is just the beauty of this idea of the teaching or God’s law and how good it is that it’s like nourishment and it drenches the ground and it brings forth life. And so that’s some of the stuff that we’re going to talk about today is just this idea of having this perspective as the seasons are changing. Before we move on, I want to give a little encouragement to you listeners that seasons are good. You were just telling me there’s reason for snow and it’s all good. The snow is good. There’s historic snow in some places. We have friends in Truckee and that apparently they have 14 feet. It’s crazy.

It’s crazy.

Walls of snow. But every season has its purposes. And so even with the snow, without the snow pack, we don’t get full aquifers and we don’t get the water that we need for irrigation. And there’s a lot of things that it’s important for. So it’s good for the farmers and for everything, just for the ground. But it reminds us of different spiritual truths as well. So spring reminds us of fresh starts and new life. We’re talking about flowers and babies and little creatures coming to life in the spring and green grass. Everything starts looking fresh and growing. And so I just pray that each and every one of you would experience a fresh start and new life in Christ this season.

I love that.

That you’d experience his mercy and his grace. Like that verse was saying rain on dry ground, that it would just [inaudible 00:11:00].

Penetrate.

If you’ve been going through a spiritual winter, feeling distant from God. And to be honest, I’ve been there recently just feeling not close and I have friends that are feeling that way. So if you’re feeling that way, feeling dry in your faith, lonely in your walk, we both pray that God’s implanted word would spring forth with new growth and beauty in your hearts. We pray that you would experience transformation in your life by the renewing of your minds. And then as James 4:8, the beginning of the verse says, draw near to God and He will draw near to you. So this spring season where the season is shifting and we’re going into season of new starts, fresh things, growth, draw near to God.

As we do draw near to God, I think it’s important that we recognize our relationship with Him is not just something that needs to be worked on. It’s not like this to-do list or like, oh, I did this today with Him. I read, I prayed. But it is an actual relationship where we’re engaging with Him all throughout the day and we’re also enjoying our relationship with God all throughout the day. And I don’t know, I just thought that’s an important thing to mention.

We wanted to bring that up also is because this topic today, this 12 date night or this we’re going to be getting into is marriage is meant to be enjoyed. It’s not just something to be constantly being worked on. It’s not like, okay, here’s the next phase of our marriage. Now we got to get better at this, and now we got to get better at that. Of course, those things are true. We do need to be better at communicating. We do need to be better lovers. We do need to be better at having fun with each other. Lots of things to work on. But we have a lifetime to do that. But we should enjoy it. We should enjoy each other. God gave us marriage to be a symbol of Christ in the church and the church is to enjoy Christ forever. That’s the point of our salvation, is that we get to now enjoy Him and be with Him forever.

So that’s kind of what we want to encourage today is like, Hey, let’s find some ways to enjoy our marriage. But here’s some scripture. Psalm 16:11, you make known to me the path of life, in your presence there is fullness of joy, at your right hand, our pleasures forevermore. Our relationship with God is to be enjoyed. And our relationship with our spouse is to be enjoyed as well. So like we said, there is work to be done always.

And side note that work and the maturity we experience is from intentionally pursuing each other and putting in the time, right?

Being intentional.

Intentionally pursuit God, but enjoying our relationship and not being afraid to enjoy our relationship. Right. Proverbs 5:18 and 19 says, let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth. A lovely deer, a graceful doe, let her breast fill you at all times with delight, be intoxicated always in her love. I mean, this is pretty provocative, but the idea is that we should enjoy each other. Like that, we have each other. We are one. And so it’s good to enjoy it. Why don’t you read Ecclesiastes 9:9?

Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun.

So Solomon who wrote this, has a pretty skeptical, or not skeptical, what’s the word? He’s a…

Realist.

He’s looking at reality, not with spiritualized. He’s looking just what’s under the sun. But he’s even noticing then that our marriages are good. So even though this is talking about the wife enjoying your wife, this is for your spouse, enjoying the spouse of your youth. This life has lots of hard things, this vain life that we have and how short it is.

And you are going to toil.

And we are going to toil.

But it’s your portion.

Let’s enjoy our spouse and the togetherness and the unity that we have in the midst of this life. So we just want you to consider the ideas we have for you for date nights this spring to see them as opportunities to simply enjoy each other. And maybe I would challenge you, don’t use these as work conversation dates. Dreaming can be fun, so that could be a part of it, but use these as intentional. We’re just going to go have fun.

Be playful.

Yep. Enjoy each other’s company. Talk about things that we love. Talk about each other, talk about our kids if you have kids. And so that’s my second encouragement.

So with the 12 dates of spring, it’s kind of that play on 12 days of Christmas, but for a new season. And we just wanted to let you guys know if you only have time this month to do one of these off the list, I think it’d be worth it. I think it’d be fun to try. Otherwise, you can actually spread these out over a whole year if you wanted to and just do one a month. You can make it like your bucket list for your marriage.

There you go.

Date night.

So it could be just a fun little list for you. Keep it and maybe you can even optimize it.

Totally.

Tweak it, make it your own. So these are just some ideas that we have.

So before we get into those specific date ideas, we did want to share a little bit of our journey and why we’ve found it so important to date each other.

And if you’ve been following us for any amount of time through our hundreds of podcasts, we love to talk about dating and some of the things that we’ve learned over the years. So you might have heard some of these before, but we’re going to share them again because it’s stuff we love.

How far back are we going?

I love dating you before we even got married. Can I just say I love dating you? It was so much fun.

What kinds of things did we do when we were dating?

Well, we did go to the movies a lot with my family, with your family, with friends. We went to shows like…

We call them shows, but they’re concerts, right?

Local bands

A lot smaller venues.

Church venues.

We did a lot of just going to places. We did hikes and we’d go to parks and…

Random adventures.

Random adventures.

We did a lot of group hanging out, like friends.

[inaudible 00:17:18].

We did a camp. We went to camp. Remember up in Washington?

Yeah.

Oh, we did ministry together when we were dating too. That was a lot of fun.

And weekly youth nights.

And weekly youth nights.

Not that was dating, but formed the friendship.

What was that? How spoke trip, were you that with me on that?

Yeah.

How was it when we did that with the church?

That was fun.

So of course a lot of the stuff had to do with church, but we did a lot of things back then. You go.

No, you go. No, no, you go.

[inaudible 00:17:47]. It felt easier back then because it was just us and everything was so fresh and exciting and I had a car. So we could just, I have a car now of course, but when I’m in college and you’re just out of high school, it was…

It seemed weird that you had a car because we were broke.

I know. But we could go do things and it was kind of fun, so.

I was just going to move on to early marriage. Again it was just us because we didn’t have kids right away. And so for the first four and a half, five years, we just kept dating each other and it was kind of awesome. We’d both work and then come home and we’d go walk to get pizza.

Or when we lived up in Washington, we would walk to get silverware from the thrift store to the other store.

[inaudible 00:18:35] store. Whatever we were lacking. We’d go and spend our weekly paycheck at the thrift store.

Or get [inaudible 00:18:41] at the place you worked at.

Oh, it was so good.

We went mini golfing. Do you remember that? I won.

Mini golfing. I’m not good at golfing at all.

I kept that score.

I know. You know what was your score?

No, I mean I just kept it for proof that I won you.

Oh, you have the scorecard somewhere?

Yes.

Oh my goodness. Of course. Well, I’m not good at golf, so I’ll go golfing again to make you feel good.

Actually.

You want to go golfing?

I do want to go golfing again. We love amusement parks. We love just being able to explore and have fun that way. What else do we used to do? Oh, we went to the beach a lot.

To be honest. We also didn’t have much money back then, so…

We did a lot of free things.

… we did a lot of cheap things. I remember a lot of Little Caesars Hot and Ready Pizzas.

Yep.

They’re $5, Hot and Ready.

That and Subway.

And Subway, was that spicy Italian? Is that what it is?

Yeah, we split it.

We would split it. Back then I was like five bucks or something like that, or 5.75. I don’t remember.

Okay. All right. We got to move on. So then our family started growing, and so we just would bring the sleepy baby along in a car seat and we’d still have a day.

We did it a lot less though. I remember there was a pretty good long season after having kids that we probably almost did it. Not at all. But if we did go out, we’d take the baby.

The first one or two. We definitely did take them along. We’d just go to dinner something quick just to get out of the house and switch things up a bit.

We tried going to a movie a couple times that didn’t work.

The baby always woke up halfway through.

Because they were like, okay, they’ll sleep…

And then I get anxiety and be like, we got to go. We got to go.

I know that didn’t work.

That didn’t work.

So we didn’t go to a movie for quite a while.

So now fast-forward to now we’ve got four kids, and what did we learn?

Well, we definitely learned the power of babysitters, which again…

The necessity

We can’t do all the time, but that’s made it really good. We’ve also learned as our kids have gotten older. I think we’ve invited some of our kids on some of our dates or dating our children.

We’ve learned the art of dating our children.

Which I need to get back into it. We kind of got out of a swing of that. I want to get back into that. Olive was just in the car. She’s like, dad, I want to go on a date with you.

But Edie’s also been asking for you to take her…

And I don’t think I’ve been on a date with her yet.

…ice skating.

Our kids want to date us. So that’s happening. There’s me and Jennifer go on our dates and then our kids are now wanting our time also. What’s hard about that is sometimes they want, both of us. We’re like, how do we do that?

Because that means giving up one of our date nights.

Exactly. But we can do that.

And most recently, our date nights has kind of morphed into Jiu-Jitsu.

That’s been a pretty consistent one actually on Thursdays.

Every other week, Aaron and I…

Go to Jiu-Jitsu together.

… go to Jiu-Jitsu, and then we grab food afterwards and we consider that our date. It just been fun.

But actually it’s a lot of fun. So I’m totally fine with doing that because I’ve been enjoying Jiu-Jitsu much, even though I’m really, really sore still…

All the time.

… all the time. But we go to Jiu-Jitsu and we get some Asian fusion afterwards, which is so good. We’ve also coupled our date nights and turned them into dreaming sessions and working together on projects and like you said, Jiu-Jitsu. So it’s not always just doing and having dinner or doing something together in that sense, but sometimes we use them to be creative and to work on projects that we got going, books we’re working on, or future books we want to work on.

We know it sounds easy saying go for a date night, but we also get the logistics of making it a reality. That can be a real struggle sometimes.

We can’t always afford a babysitter. Sometimes our babysitter cancels for whatever reason because they have a life too.

They get sick or whatever.

So we have to realize that there’s real challenges involved. But I would say that one of the biggest things that we did was, and we brought this up a lot, is at least putting it on the calendar and making a regular attempt at date night, which does increase the likelihood of that happening.

And again, we’ve gone through seasons where we couldn’t afford to actually go out, and so you find other ways to make it happen. And actually we have some ideas on here that you don’t have to spend any money for it. That’s good. So real quick before we get to the list, Aaron, what would you say to a husband and wife listening right now who maybe the reason that they haven’t been actively pursuing date night or even finding that spark of creativity to do something fun with each other is because there’s tension built up and maybe they don’t feel like having fun right now. What would you say to them?

Or don’t want to go anywhere?

That’s what I mean.

Alone time is hard.

Separate corners.

That’s hard because depending on the level at which they are distant or in turmoil or angry, a date night might not be possible unless there’s a mutual understanding of like, Hey, let’s use this date night to..

Try and reboot.

… reboot.

Or what do you call it?

Or Let’s get back on the same page. Lets kind of get it all on the table. Let’s write these things down. Let’s talk about them. And sometimes maybe doing that in a public place keeps it a lot more cordial. I’m sure. Maybe not for some people, but using that as an opportunity specifically to…

Reengage. That’s good. Okay, one more question. What would you say to the person listening right now who wants to and is enthusiastic about going on date nights, but for whatever reason, their spouse isn’t present, so maybe it’s because of work. Maybe they’re traveling or maybe there is separation. What can that person do?

Maybe figure out ways of doing date night digitally. I know a lot of people use FaceTime. It’s a pretty powerful tool these days.

Just getting that communication in [inaudible 00:24:38].

Let’s say it’s a husband that’s a fireman. He’s gone most of the week. Or someone who travels truck driver. I mean, there’s lots of careers that husbands had to be gone or wives maybe planning something for when you know they’re going to be home and preparing and being vigilant to not allow that to be sabotaged.

Sabotaged. I knew where you were going with that.

Well, because it’s a lot of emotions wrapped up and they’ve been gone for a certain amount of time when they get home. There’s all these things that need to be taken care of. There’s conversations that need to be had. There’s all this stuff that you’re going to have to put boundaries on so that you could be like, I want to do this.

That’s good though. Even if it’s a couple months out, put something down and planned so that they both look forward to it.

And even let your spouse know about it, so they look forward to it too.

That’s good.

I think for me, one of the best parts about having date night on the calendar is knowing it’s coming. I’ve said this a lot, I really enjoy it. I’m like, when I forget about it, and then you’re like, Hey, we got a babysitter. I’m like, really? And I get so excited. I don’t know why.

Sometimes I intentionally don’t tell you that a date night’s coming because…

You want to surprise me?

When I spring it on you. You get so excited.

I do.

It’s fun,

But I look forward to it. So maybe build that anticipation if you know that…

That’s good.

… you’re going to see them in a week, a month, and plan something. If it’s the longer, maybe plan something awesome. I don’t know.

Cool.

Within your means. Of course.

Well, we want to be sensitive to you who do find it hard to make a plan, yet we also hope that these ideas will be seeds planted in your heart, and we’ll find a way to grow and come to be over time. And for anyone who may be in a position where the tension’s too thick or things are just too hard between you two, let this date night idea, the seed, be a prayer, be something that you go to God for, and petition for your spouse. Looking forward to those.

Looking forward to season changes.

Right?

The better seasons ahead. Well, should we share this list?

Here we go. So this is your 12 days of spring. Wait, 12 dates of spring.

Date ideas.

Okay. Number one.

This one’s technically free, depending on…

Well mine is the food, because food’s expensive right now, but pack a picnic and hike a trail. It could be a short trail. It could be a paved trail. It could be a [inaudible 00:27:06] of a trail.

It could be a hard trail.

It could be a hard trail. One with a view maybe.

Or maybe one, just a bunch of daffodils by a stream.

Oh, that sounds really beautiful.

Like your poem. If you find one of those, tell us where, because we love seeing fields of flowers.

But this could be really simple like making sandwiches. Growing up, my family, we used to do cheese whizz on saltines.

Didn’t we all? Didn’t we all?

What did I just call it?

Cheese whizz on saltines? No.

On saltines.

On Ritz

Or Ritz.

Ritz is how [inaudible 00:27:34]. You do cheese whizz on Ritz.

I got confused because I was also going to say with sardines. Saltines with sardines.

Was it called cheese whizz or was it called…? It was called cheese spreader.

No, it’s called cheese whizz. It’s like a can. I don’t know what’s inside of it.

I actually really liked that stuff and I think our kids would love it too. I don’t think they’ve ever had it.

We should pack a [inaudible 00:27:52].

We should go get cheese whizz and Ritz.

We can’t turn all of these ideas into a family thing.

But our kids would like it. This is actually one of our problems people, is we have these ideas. We want to go do something we like.

We like to have fun.

How do we get our kids to come do this with us?

Okay, so pack a picnic, hike a trail.

Did you really put Sardines as one of the options?

No, I was bringing that as a note.

Only Cody likes sardines.

There could be others.

You could bring some things if you want.

We need to move on.

Okay, number two. Again, this is kind of a free one, unless you don’t own the game. Go play chess at the park.

Cool. Pick a picnic table and just…

Because then you could look like one of those staple old people that just, they’re there. They’re playing chess, and you’re like, “man, what’s the story?”

You can’t call them old, Aaron.

No. They become like one of them.

If you don’t have the game, you could go to Goodwill. I know they have them for cheap. Or ask someone you know, borrow the game.

And if you don’t want play chess, they could pretty much bring any game.

Well, I was going to suggest checkers because I’m a lot better at checkers than I am a chess.

And I’m not good at checkers.

I love checkers.

I’m good at chess though. I’m decent. Goodwill’s a good idea actually. I bet you they have tons of chessboards now. Good luck having all the pieces that’s up in the air bud.

I just found out you couldn’t take this one to the park. But plunder, which we love, is you could do it two player.

Speaking of games, we probably should do another episode of our favorite games.

Just games, I know.

Because now we have 10 new ones from the last time we recorded an episode.

If you guys are on a double date and you want a quick card game to bring to the table, that’s not absurd with taking up space.

It’s small.

It’s called zero to a hundred.

Look it up.

Pretty fun.

You’ll thank us.

Okay. Number three, visit a nearby nursery for inspiration on adding or starting to a garden. So again, you don’t have to…

This one’s close to your heart.

Totally. And you don’t have to leave with anything. I always tell Aaron, let’s stop by this nursery. I’m not going to get anything. I’m just going to let…

That’s never true.

We’re always walking away with some bulbs and some pots of flowers and…

Seeds. Even though a nursery is kind of like shopping, they’re so beautiful. The set up.

It’s sounds nice. And it’s outside usually.

Just go and enjoy it.

Nurseries are fun. All right. If you don’t have one, maybe your friend does, but firing up the fire pit in the backyard, just sitting down next to a crackling fire. If you have a fireplace, you could do it there too. But there’s something nice about being outside.

Under the stars.

Under the stars and being warmed by a fire. I love the smell of fire pits. I don’t like the smell of it on me afterwards, but when we’re sitting there and you just hear the wood crackling and you smell the smoke, and I love looking at the flames.

That is mesmerizing.

It is. And often when it’s just us two, the good conversations.

They’re slower. Which I like the pace of them better because I can tell we’re both…

Remind us of another time.

Thinking. Be uninterrupted. Cozy up. Go get a blanket.

Number five. You don’t like this one at all.

Go grab ice cream. Ice cream is always fun.

We just do this with the kids.

I was going to say, we always take our kids to go get ice cream. I just think it’s one of those spontaneous, this is a great idea, but we rarely just go get ice cream.

I was just thinking, don’t you have a Cold Stone like gift card somewhere floating around here?

I’m pretty sure I used it.

Oh! Really? Sneaky. Sneaky. We should go to Cold Stone and get your famous… you want to give away your recipe?

It’s not really a recipe, it’s just something that I…

It’s really good.

Okay. They have their pre-made stuff there. And then I went in and I knew what I wanted and had what was on the list.

Because you can tell what you want. You’re like, I want that ice cream and want this thing. Mix it with this.

So, I got the cake butter ice cream with brownie chunks with banana and caramel, but you have to get extra caramel.

It’s incredible.

So good.

Every time I go, I would get something else.

But you’d always eat mine.

I always eat Jennifer’s because it’s so good. I tried it as a shake once. Definitely not as good, you need the chunks.

Aaron always gets the shake.

You need the banana. I always do the shake. I do.

There was also, remember 21 Choices in California? That was really good.

We didn’t used to have… No, we didn’t have it here. 21 Choices is different than Baskin-Robbins. Not Baskin-Robbins. Okay.

You can go there if that’s your only option.

If that’s the only option for ice cream, go to the store and buy.

Make your own.

She’s kidding. Okay.

Number six.

Number six. This is a trend that’s gotten huge over the last 10 years. Food trucks. I mean, depending on where you live and depending on what area, this could be a really fun thing. In our city, I feel like we like five or six of these little tiny food truck areas. And all of them have their own little personality and traits…

Atmosphere is cool.

… and different foods. And to be honest, some of the be best sushi in Bend, Oregon is at a food truck. It’s so good. But it’s fun because again, you’re outside unless they have some sort of covered thing. But you can even go and try this appetizer at this one. Try this drink at this one. Try this [inaudible 00:32:54].

It’s like a progressive dinner without having to go somewhere else.

It is in one spot. I actually really like food trucks. You get to try different things. And they often have stuff that restaurants don’t. Just because they’re so unique. But a food truck court is an awesome, fun place to go. And usually it’s lively. And sometimes they have live music.

Sometimes. Especially in the summertime. Okay. Number seven. My parents grew up rollerblading, not rollerblading. Rollerskating.

Rollerskating.

And it’s coming back. They go all the time. My mom will send me videos of her and my dad just [inaudible 00:33:29].

I know, I think it’s so funny. But that’s her generation. Like our generation invented roller-blades.

She’s good at it too. She could go backwards and stuff. I can’t do that.

But now these new generations are all going back to roller skating. Not just your mom, but like the younger crowd.

Do you know that the [inaudible 00:33:44] have roller-blades? They go down.

I do know that. And they go roller-blade on dates, don’t they?

They’re so cute. They go on dates.

I like them.

We should get a pair.

Something that as I can attach this. If you’re not going to go roller skating or rollerblading is bike riding.

That’s easier for me in my coordination.

Yes.

And we do that a lot. And that again, that’s when we always do with our kids too. But we should go on a bike ride this year. This summer.

Sounds fun. Can’t wait for the snow to be off the ground.

I know we can’t yet, until the snow’s off the ground. It will not be good unless we had snow bikes. But we don’t have snow bikes.

But they still have indoor rinks. Like if you guys want to go roller skating.

That’s true.

Could be fun. Could bring back some older memories of younger years dating if you ever did that dating. Did we ever do that dating?

Skip roller skating? No. No. That didn’t happen. Remember I said I had a car? We didn’t skateboard or roller skate or ride bikes anywhere.

Okay.

Okay.

Number eight. Go for a swim at a local community pool. An indoor pool.

Those can be fun because sometimes they’re have…

They’re over, right?

I think so.

We have a couple here.

I think we have them. No, we grew up and there was community pools. We always used to go…

The plunge.

… to the plunge.

That’s right. That wasn’t indoors though.

No, it wasn’t.

Okay. If you have an indoor pool at a community center, you should go check it out. They usually really affordable and it’s fun.

Or if a friend is in a community that has a pool, ask them for the passcode.

Or even just a hot tub.

Oh, hot tub. That’s a good idea. Number nine. Jennifer, you actually fell in love with this. We were staying at a house last year that had a little tennis court in the back and we started playing pickleball.

I’m addicted to it.

It’s so much fun because you’re still moving, but it’s not as intense as tennis. You don’t have to be as perfectly coordinated. Because tennis, I can’t even get the ball over the fence and the net. But pickle ball, it’s the ball’s a little slower.

Which I like.

You made me [inaudible 00:35:41] the court a lot.

They have indoor courts too. It’s becoming also very popular.

We have a place here called Pickle Zone. It’s like three stories of pickleball. But

If you don’t want to do pickleball, they also have trampoline zone. If you like to jump. Just an option.

I actually really do like that.

I don’t like to jump. I don’t like my feet coming off the ground like that.

Actually, I took the kids to trampoline zone a couple weeks ago, and I saw several young couples.

Oh, really?

On a date there. And some older couples too. No kids, just them jumping around, finding their little corner. That was so sweet.

Okay. Number 10 is go yard sailing together.

Okay. We were talking about what we used to do.

We did this a lot.

We used to do this a lot.

We do it from time to time. But now it’s like, “Hey Aaron, I want to run down the street real quick, would you watch the kids and I’ll be right back.”

I know. Because you can’t take the kids because they start picking everything up.

But if you have the time and you can, I put sailing like S-A-I-L-I-N-G, because to me it’s like you got to just keep the coast of one to the next to the next.

You just keep moving through.

It’s fun. It can be a really fun day.

And you’re not looking for anything. That’s the thing.

No. You don’t have to buy anything.

No. You always leave with something.

I always do.

But, you’re not looking for anything.

Basically, Aaron’s telling you that I just spend money because you keep telling everyone that I won’t leave anywhere without everything.

Well, the places that you love, because when you’re at [inaudible 00:37:06] you see an antique bell. But you can’t not, you’re like, I need this bell. Why do you need this bell?

I know. I like antiques and I like plants. So that’s my weak spot. And ice cream.

I like antiques. I like functional antiques. Things that I can actually use.

Name one thing.

I like to get old glasses.

A pair of glasses?

Not glasses, reading glasses, but drinking glasses. I like getting old glasses. Those are functional.

All right.

That’s the only thing I can think of.

If you ever see an old glass, send it our way.

Don’t do that.

You know what I like? What if you ever want to know? Well, you know how I like flowers and plants. I like vintage oil paintings of…

Flowers and plants.

Flowers and plants.

And little girls and fields.

I do like that.

See? I know you.

I like any little kid pictures.

You do like old paintings.

Old paintings.

We have a lot of those in our house.

No we don’t.

We have some in the bathroom. We have some in the garage that we need to actually put up.

That’s true.

Okay. Here’s a fun one. This is number 11. We’re almost done. Do art. So this could be you just go to the Joanne’s or some art studio, or art supply store, I should say. Maybe pick up watercolor paint and some watercolor canvas. You don’t spend a ton of money.

They do have studios where you can actually go and they’ll help you through the process.

Actually this specifically, I’ve been looking locally and there’s not a lot of options.

There’s one right down the street.

But what I was looking for is someone that would teach some sort of classical painting.

Oh, that’s because it takes a long time. Not like one session.

No. But something where you sit down and they do it kind of like, who is that guy that used to do the painting show? He’s super famous. What’s his name? But I was thinking like someone showing you like, Hey, here’s how you’re going to use this brush. And whether the painting looked great or not. Just having that experience would be fun. But I haven’t found anything yet. I’m sure there might be something around here.

If not YouTube.

Okay. You do. Number 12. It’s the last one.

Number 12 is go fishing, which we did in the summertime last year. And summer might feel a little bit better than spring.

We didn’t catch anything. But we did lose some lures.

I was working on my cast.

I lost one too.

And I replenished them in your stockings for Christmas.

Yes, you did.

Go fishing or something like that. Right. Go down by a lake [inaudible 00:39:33].

Fishing is fun. It’s a new thing that I’ve just been experimenting with, but trying out this last year or so. I have a couple of friends that are just, they’ve are really good fishermen. And I went out with them and I kind of fell in love with them. And I got this little rod, actually was gifted to me from a friend. And I took you, I was like, Hey, you want to go? And we went up to the mountains, found a little river, and just cast it in for 30 minutes.

Kind of the other ideas of sitting around a fire pit or even walking around a nursery though, they slow you down, but they give you things to think about visually while you’re considering conversation. To me, that’s like a golden date.

Well if you notice, a lot of these are outside, so we’re getting into spring and then summer. I mean, let’s enjoy it. Let’s go outside. Let’s let the fresh air get in our lungs, let the vitamin D get into our body. But doing it with our spouse, enjoying each other’s company, trying new things. Not to be good at them necessarily, but just to do them together like fishing, I’m not good at it. And you’re probably better than me, actually.

No, I’m not.

But it was just really fun.

Doing something together.

It would’ve been like remarkable if we caught something and we would’ve been like, oh my goodness. And then we’d be doing it every weekend. But still, I had a lot of fun. Oh, actually look forward to doing again. I’ve been waiting for it to warm up a little bit, but.

Cool.

I’m not as hardcore as some of our friends who go in the snow.

Nope. Won’t do that.

And [inaudible 00:40:59] and, no, not me.

It’d be a solo date. You can FaceTime me.

Babe. It’s so fun out here.

All right guys.

I [inaudible 00:41:10] any bugs though.

That’s true. That wraps up our 12 dates of spring, and we hope that we’ve given you at least a little bit to chew on and consider and hopefully do this next season in your marriage and have fun together. And we also just want to encourage you to reminisce about the good old days and the times that you did date together. Maybe pull something from way out there that you guys used to do something that was fun together and you enjoyed. Do that again.

That’s a good idea.

Remember the daffodils.

If you do end up doing any of these dates and you want to share with us, would you shoot us a message or post about it on Instagram and tag one of us? We love seeing what everyone’s doing and knowing the people that are engaging with our content. It’s a lot of fun. So we invite you to do that.

So this month’s growth spurt, just to kind of revisit what this is and what we’ve been doing. Every month we have a new idea that we are challenged, that we offer to you guys to try and do. The first month, January was build trust in your marriage with your spouse by doing what you’ll say. Number two in February was love and action. So trying a romantic gesture for your spouse just to serve them and love them. And then this month we are springing into fun. So doing an activity together on your next date night. So whether you get one date in or for the next three, four weeks, you are able to plan something. Maybe your date comes a little bit later, but you start planning it now and anticipating it now. Spring into fun with us.

Go get that game. Zero to a hundred.

Or Plunder.

It’s a lot of fun. Plunder is hard on date nights though, unless you’re like on a big table.

Or by a fire pit.

Or by a fire pit.

All right. Why don’t you end with prayer?

Dear Lord, thank you for inspiring us to search out ways of spending time together that are fun and create exciting new memories with each other. We pray where we consider the things we can do in our budget that would cultivate friendship and intimacy. We pray we would have more fun together and make spending quality time together a priority. Please inspire us and help us to enjoy our marriage. In Jesus’ name, amen.