Indoor Stargazing

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Michael's Date Night

Sorry this date is more than a week late. Things have just been pretty crazy around here!

So last week, I had a lot of trouble coming up with a date. Finally, I was outside and looked up at the stars and thought that stargazing would be a good date. But it was pretty cold outside last weekend, so we decided to do it indoors.

How, you ask? Well, I'll tell you.

First, we each took a pin and a black piece of construction paper, and we stabbed a whole bunch of holes, like so:

 
When we were done, we had two unique "night skies:"

We attached them to a lampshade with tape:

Then we turned off all the lights except for the lamp, and we picked out constellations in the stars.

I also made some hot chocolate and put it an a jar for us to share!

This was a really simple and easy date that didn't take a long time to prepare. It was nice and relaxing, and it involved spending time together and chatting, which is always really nice.

Total cost for this date: FREE!!

Pick a Date, Any Date

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Violet's Date Night

I'm so excited to tell everyone about this date!

But before I get started, I want to apologize for us not getting our date up last week. We had a super cute, fun, easy date, and Michael will be getting it up later today. So that means two new dates this week! 

The inspiration for this week's comes from our local library, which had a "blind date with a book" event in February. They wrapped up a few books, wrote some words describing the book on the wrapping, and people would decide on reading a book without actually seeing what it was. I decided to do the same thing with our date night this week.

I printed out pictures of the posters for four very different movies and put them in envelopes, then added three treats and an activity to each.

The night before our date, I had Michael pick one of the four envelopes with only the different colors on the front as a guide:

He had a hard time deciding, but finally picked the orange.

Inside was Unicorn City, with some "Gamer treats" (Mountain Dew, Cheetos, and Nerds Rope) and the game "Munchkin" for an activity.

The other envelopes contained:

Pink:

• Emma
• Herb Tea
• Biscotti
• Chocolate
• A walk in the park

Dark blue:

• Snow White and the Huntsman
• Sparkling Apple Cider
• Caramel Apple Slices
• Hostess/Offbrand Sno Balls
• Reading some Grimm's Fairy Tales

Light Blue:

• Atlantis: The Lost Empire 
• Jones Bubblegum Soda (Because it's blue)
• Goldfish Crackers
• Swedish Fish
• Swimming

We will save these for future emergency dates, so you may see them pop up again sometime.

The next day we took the papers from the envelope Michael picked

and exchanged them for the real thing:

We also dressed for the occasion:

Michael is wearing a wizard shirt, and I'm wearing a dragon shirt.

One of the best things about this date is that you can use the same ideas we did, or come up with different ideas for literally any movie (or TV show, or book) you want to. The possibilities are endless!

Sunrise Date

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Violet's Date Night

Last week Michael planned a day date. This week we took it even further and had a morning date! We went to a park early in the morning with our camera and a picnic breakfast to watch the sunrise.

Our breakfast:

Not super fancy or super healthy, but super yummy for sure!

There was a cute little gazebo at the park and we sat at one of the tables there to eat our breakfast.

 Look how dark it was behind us!


We snuggled and talked as we watched the sunrise, and of course took pictures:

This was a fun and simple date that we really enjoyed, and we hope you enjoy it too!

Total cost for the yummy breakfast: $5.61

Digital Zoo Date

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Michael's Date Night
 
Don't you just love the zoo? Cause we do. But unfortunately, we don't live anywhere near a zoo, and they're expensive. So I decided to take Violet on a date inspired by this one we found on Love, Actually. We went to a virtual zoo from the comfort of our own living room.

First, I came up with a list of animals to include. Then I found videos on YouTube of them, mostly from various zoos. I made a document with hyperlinks to the videos, which I made into a PDF and uploaded here. Feel free to use it for personal use, but please don't repost it online anywhere or give it to your friends; instead send them to our blog. :-)

If you want a different assortment of animals, you can make your own zoo guide in Microsoft Word, or just look up different animal videos on the web.

We did this as a daytime date, so we packed a lunch: peanut butter sandwiches and fruit cups. We ate them during the Sea Lion Feeding Time video.

On the actual date, I had the PDF open in fullscreen mode on the laptop, and we sat on the couch and clicked the links to watch the different animals. We enjoyed them a lot, especially the live videos the San Diego Zoo has of several of their animals, including these Koalas and Orangutans which we took pictures of on the screen:

Afterwards, we finished it off with Bear Claw ice cream and animal crackers (plus Tagalongs, since it's girl scout cookie season).

Total cost without the treat: FREE!
Cost for ice cream and animal crackers: $5.11