Recently, I visited a blog, serenity now, and she talked about date night, with pinterest pictures showing pinned ideas. Ok, just signed up for pinterest but haven’t really gotten into it yet. Great idea posting pictures to speak ideas and lead to even further ideas!

Personally, the best date night that I have gone on with my husband, in the last 2 years, was actually a gifted “drive-through” date night set up by our local church, Watermark. We drove “through”, rather by, and volunteers gave us a grab bag and snapped a funny picture for us to take along our journey for the evening.

In the grab bag, there were coupons to local restaurants, candy, and a pamphlet with tasks to partake in together. We randomly picked one of the restaurants suggested with coupons and started our spontaneous date night.

Part 1: A mad libs to fill out while driving to dinner. My hubby was driving which gave me the best job of asking the questions and laughing at the story with his given answers. I love mad libs.

Part 2: Would you rather questionnaire to ask and answer over dinner.

Part 3: The best!! A game of Granium while eating dessert. Well, we ended up talking so much from the would you rather questionnaire that we had already finished dessert. So we went home and played Granium while having a glass of wine and grandma still babysitting for us. Our Granium game had a list of questions which we could either answer by drawing(eyes closed & using non-dominant hand) or sculpting(with given foil) and your spouse had to correctly guess what had been drawn or sculpted. We both had tears running down our faces from laughing so hard. Had so much raw, simple, and hilarious fun with that game and hanging out as best friends on our date night.

I recently read an informative article in a Dallas newspaper. It was an interview of an older, extremely successful, popular and soon to retire Dallas Pediatrician. Some of his answers to questions asked have stuck in my head. One in particular was,What is the best thing parents can do to help their children? His answer was to make sure your marriage works. This really hit me because I know that I tend to put my child before my husband. In one of my bible studies, I also heard the importance of alone time with your husband being preached. The statement: Your husband was your best friend before children and will be the one still there when your children are gone, is another statement that has stuck in my head. My husband and I are good at being best friends and making time, weekly, for ourselves together. However, we have never had time alone from our child, beyond when our child sleeps.

After nearly 3 years, my hubby and I took our first, and greatly needed, vacation alone. Yes, alone, no son!!! It was amazing and long overdo. We visited the lovely city of San Francisco.

Above, Golden Gate and a picture of me standing in front of my most favorite restaurant in the world!! I ate there New Years Eve nearly 10+years ago and I still think of it with my mouth watering fondly. It's a everything is Garlic restaurant and my husband (not a garlic fan) was sweet to eat there anyways. Thankfully, like me, he is open-minded....just a little dramatic (see below with his facial expressions, eating a piece of bread smothered with whole garlic.

We tried on different hats, trying to find just the perfect one to bring home to our son. Also enjoyed riding the well-known cable cars! 

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Kissing on the same steps of Sts. Peter and Paul Church where Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio took wedding pictures. I love that my husband loves to laugh with me and we do laugh together!!

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Many now complain that Fisherman’s Wharf is touristy, dirty and a “can skip” part of San Franciso these days. Well like most others, we went anyways and really liked it.

We enjoyed observing the seals at Pier 39, eating fresh seafood from street vendors, touring the old WWII historic boats, Boudin museum (Martini & Popsicles “born” here), Musee Mechanique for vintage arcades. Got to play pac-man again for 25Cents and my German husband played it for the first timeJ Had some fortune tellers (see below) predict that we are greatly in love and would have a long and happy life together J 

We loved walking through Chinatown and North Beach(Italian Town)! Alcatraz Island; You can understand how crazy it must have made the prisoners of Alcatraz Island to be so close, but unattainable, to life in San Francisco.

Sometimes it is hard to believe that we went from living and travelling through 7-15 countries a year, our first 3 years of marriage, to never even taking a road trip out of Dallas for 3 years following. I’ve quickly realized how difficult the balance is between children and married life. Thankfully, my husband balances me and makes me a better person. I strive to always work on keeping my marriage strong while also meeting the needs of my child. (Below) Just some of my favorite pictures from our honeymoon in Greece & Turkey, over 5 years ago!!

To all hard working moms out there focusing on being a great mother, don’t forget to focus on being a great spouse. One of the best gifts you can give your children is to have a loving relationship with their father. Side note: To the single moms out there, my thoughts are also with you….coming from a divorced home, I grew up observing my mother still showing my dad respect, love, support and speaking kindly of him which was beneficial in its own way! Also, to my mother, Omi, thank you for supporting our marriage and taking such great care of your grand, our little boy, allowing us to take this trip to San Fran. Thanks are also do to our wonderful Uncle Thomas who also helped Omi, watching his newphew while we were gone.