Date 1 of 52--Dinner & Dancing (kinda)

It's Monday, and since I'm a prisoner to the Mortuary phone all day, I thought I might update everyone on our first of 52 date nights. We decided to use some gift cards we'd gotten two Christmases ago (I know. For shame!) so our "hot" date started out with dinner at the Olive Garden--along with 1500 of our closest friends. Good thing we decided to go early because getting there at 5:00 assured us only a 30 minute wait, as opposed to the hour+ wait for the hundreds showing up after 5:30. I'd forgotten how crazy restaurants in Utah get on holiday weekends. Obviously it's been a while since we've been out!
Dinner was heavenly. Not that the food was spectacular--though the scallops did melt in my mouth! It's just that anytime I don't have to cook it or clean it up is simply divine in my book. We ordered appetizers and frou-frou drinks which ended up giving my tongue cankers, but they were yummy nonetheless. The best part was that we didn't hurry ourselves through any of it; just a slow, leisurely dining experience that was certainly unusual for me, but very, very enjoyable.

After dinner we headed over to the dance. Yeah, we're too old and boring (and let's face it, terrible dancers) for dance club stuff, so we had to settle for the Stake Valentine's Day Dance. Did I mention that part of Mike's calling as a High Councilor is to be over stake activities, so he had to be there to welcome everyone and call on someone for a prayer? Three guesses as to who he called on...anyone? Anyone? Now I'm thinking that we better clarify the rules of dating to include that functions he's in charge of don't count as dates, bringing treats to said function, or certainly calling on his wife to pray nullifies it, too.

(Even if the treats turn out to be as scrumptious as my Double Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes with Raspberry Frosting did.)

We'd heard stories that the VDay dance had been a pretty big bomb in years past, so we had pretty low expectations going in. We were quite surprised to see that not only were we not the only ones in our ward there, but that there were close to 100 people gettin' their grove thang on! Despite the major flashbacks to youth Stake Dances, we laughed and danced, and laughed for the better part of two hours. It was a relief to not be the worst dancers on the floor, and it was worth the ringing in the ears that lasted through the next day. I think we'll try to avoid such late night excursions from now on, though, because every one of the kids were crank-y all the next day from being up so late waiting for us.

I don't expect that all of dates 2-52 will be the same kind of fun or exciting as this first one was, especially since we'll be spending half of them here at home, but I do hope that the spark we rediscovered Friday night will keep flickering as we make the time for each other every week. I got a great idea from another blogger about planning our dates that I want to share later on this week. At least for us, it will go a long way in making sure we stick to our weekly date nights.

One down, 51 to go!