43 Kisses

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Michael's Date Night

This is a very fun date that we got from HotDateIdeas.com. We've done this one before, shortly after we got married. We enjoyed it so much we thought we'd do it again (I promise I do more than just recycle old dates!) It's a great way to mix things up and try out new ways to kiss.

Go to HotDateIdeas.com and print out the cutouts PDF. You can either go through the 43 different kisses in order, like we did last time, or you can cut them out, put them in a hat, and take turns drawing them out, like we did this time.

Kisses in a hat

Since we don't drink, we skipped the Liqueur Kiss, so we really only had 42 kisses. Some of our favorites were the Frog Kiss, the Mystery Kiss, and the Lady and the Tramp Kiss.

Meet in the middle

 You need a few supplies for this date. There's some flexibility in what you use, as the instructions for the relevant kisses say. We decided to use candy for all of them, cause it's sweet! You can look at the descriptions and decide what you want to use.

Ingredients for the Mystery, Candy, Flavored, Fireworks, and Lady and the Tramp Kisses

 Total cost for this date: $3.58 for the candy

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

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Violet's Date Night

This week has been long and busy for both Michael and I, so I thought it would be nice to just watch a movie and have some down time. 

I got my inspiration for this date from this idea over at The Dating Divas. You can take ideas from either post, and of course watch any movie that would fit you better if you aren't as into musicals as the two of us are.

Neither my husband nor I are very country, but was able to come up with a few things to decorate our little table:

I think it turned out pretty cute!

I took the label off the bottle of root beer to make it look more old-fashioned, since the glass bottles were a little more expensive. Also, though we do have some cute cactus glasses, we thought it would be more fun to pass the bottle of root beer back and forth than just drinking it out of glasses.

I also made some yummy chili and corn bread for dinner:

Mmm...delish!

After dinner, we snuggled up on the couch and watched Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. 

We had most of the ingredients for chili and figured the rest into our grocery budget. We also watched the movie through our Amazon student account so it was free.

Total cost of the date: About $5.00 for the ingredients we didn't already have. And the pot of chili should last us a couple more days. ;)

Mad Libs!

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Michael's Date Night

This is such an awesome date that this is the third time we've done it. It's really simple, easy to prepare for, repeatable, hilarious, and best of all, completely free!

All you need is access to a printer and a pencil. I went to www.madglibs.com, which has free printable Mad Libs (be aware that some of them aren't very well made), and I picked out a few that I liked.

I also came up with an idea for one that wasn't on the website and made it myself in Microsoft Word: Captain Kirk's intro to Star Trek ("Space: the final frontier"). I printed all of them out and we got ready.

For those of you who may not have done Mad Libs before, it's really simple. There's a passage of text with certain words replaced by numbered blanks.

• Each blank in the text matches up with a list of the parts of speech of the missing words. 
• One person reads the part of speech, the other person provides a word that fits that part of speech. For instance, if the missing word is a "verb ending in 'ing'", the person might suggest "falling." 
• Once the list is complete, you read through the passage, putting in the new words where the blanks are. It can get really hilarious.

Some of our highlights from tonight:

• From "Yesterday" by the Beatles: "There's an air compressor falling over me."
• From "Superhero Almanac: Superman": "Clark initially used his powers snobbishly to help people and prevent or thwart bicentennials."
• Also, Superman has "obnoxious vision"

We had a great time coming up with silly words and hearing them in silly ways. It's always great to laugh together!

 Total cost for this date: FREE!

Speaking of the Tango--Tango Date Night!

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Violet's Date Night

Hey everyone! I'm super excited to present our first date for the blog--learning to tango! As soon as Michael and I came up with the name for our blog, I thought it would be fun to start off with a date that went along with the name.

The best part of this date: aside from a little treat Michael and I bought, it's completely free!

My husband and I have had a long and fairly stressful week, so I decided we deserved a little treat. Since our theme was the Argentinian tango, I did some research, found out Dulce de Leche was an Argentinian dessert, and decided that Dulce de Leche ice cream would be perfect. I decided on the treat a little late, so we got all dolled up and then headed to the store in our fancy clothes.

We actually found Dulce de Leche ice cream faster than I thought we would

When we got home, I pulled out my laptop and went to this webpage, where Michael and I read some of the history of the Argentinian tango. There are a few different categories of the history on the left side of the page. We read "How they learned", since I thought it was the most interesting subject.

Next, we went to this page on vivaladance.co.uk, where the site's dancers have uploaded a few instructional videos for beginners. There are two videos on the page for the tango, as well as two for the waltz.

Our wonderful instructors for the evening. :D

Michael and I had fun trying out all of the steps in both videos, though we admittedly weren't very graceful at any of them.

We're much better at standing still (don't tell anyone)

After we had learned some of the basic steps, I went on youtube and played "Takes Two to Tango" by Louis Armstrong. It's a jazz piece, but you can tango to it. It also has some pretty fun lyrics. And it's Louis Armstrong. How could you not want to listen to it? We also looked for some other tango music to be just a little more legit. ;)

After that, it was time to relax and cool down from our dance workout with our ice cream.

Total cost for this date with fancy ice cream: $4.11
Total cost for this date without fancy ice cream: FREE!

It Takes Two to Tango

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Hi, I'm Michael!

And I'm Violet!

We're married.

Pictures from our 1-year anniversary

 And we're excited to start working on this blog together. We created this blog for two main reasons:

1. There aren't many websites with good dating suggestions for married couples (except, of course, the lovely Dating Divas and Love, Actually blogs).
2. We couldn't find any dating blogs that consistently have the man's perspective in the relationship.

This second reason really bothered us. Just like the old phrase "it takes two to tango," it takes two to date, and we wanted to show both perspectives in an actively dating couple. The two of us switch off every week on planning dates, and we plan to switch off every week in keeping up this blog as well.

We have had weekly dates since about three months before our wedding, and we have a fairly specific set of rules for ourselves:

1. We have a date night every week. No exceptions.
2. We switch off planning the date. This week Violet is planning it, next week Michael will plan it, etc.
3. The person planning the date must ask the other one out, even if they already know what the date is. 
4. Our date nights have to be something we wouldn't just do anyway. This doesn't mean our dates can't be simple. For instance, once we had a very busy week and our date was just to read a book and watch a TV show. But in a week where we were doing that all the time, it wouldn't count. There has to be something special about our activity to set it apart from the rest of the week.

These are the rules we've found work for us. Feel free to use or ignore them as you please, though we'd love if you would all have date nights as close to once a week as possible. :D

Also, we are on a very tight budget, so most if not all of the dates we post will be free or extremely cheap (though some of them may be saved up for).

Anyway, we hope this blog will be helpful to you! Feel free to borrow and adapt from our dates as you wish. Of course, we would really appreciate you linking back to us whenever you use our ideas on blogs or elsewhere on the internet. :)

~Michael & Violet