My husby and I love to have day nights (or mornings).

For many years when our kiddos were small, getting away for a day or night out together was almost obsolute. As our kids have gotten older, it is very important to us at least once a month to get away even for a few hours.

When your kids are small, you are so busy with their wants and needs that it consumes all of you. There is no time for your hobbies or activities and your day in and day out schedules rotates around them and them only.

I realized at some point during this journey, that my husby’s and mine conversions consisted only about our children. I think that was a wake up moment for me.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my children with all my heart.  But my world should not revolve around them.  My world and life should revolve around God, then my marriage.

I thought to myself, if husby and I don’t have any alone time together having fun, finding out what we each like now that we are older, then will we even have anything to talk about when the kiddo’s leave home? Will we know anymore what little things make us smile? Will we be able to sit down to dinner and have a conversion just about us?

To be quite honest, I don’t think so.

That was when it became my goal, my passion, my desire to have Date Nights just to find out who we are are as indivduals, not the mom and dad of Keegan and Lindy, but who Miranda and William are as people and fall in love all over again.

If you are anything like us, and you live month to month on a strict budget with not a lot of wiggle room, then finding extra money to have a day or night just for the two of you can be hard to come by.  I understand that after bills, groceries and children needs, there isn’t always a lot of money left over for dates so I am sharing some “Summer Dates on a Budget” Ideas that I have put together that we like to do and have fun with.

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Farmer’s Market Morning Date

Who said Date Night had to be at Night?

My husby is a morning person. He is so used to getting up when the roosters crow for work, that he funtions so much better in the morning than the afternoon.

And evening, Well just forget that! LOL ! That is when you find him zonked out of the couch!

Me?

Well I won’t lie. I am not a morning person at all. I can do mid morning, but please roosters, just let me sleep. But by evening my mind has been going in twelve different directions all day so I’m no good to anyone at that point.

So last week my husby told me he was taking Saturday off. The kids had been going non-stop all week long with friends and family.  This is not normally something we let them do, but my sister was in from Texas and they wanted to spend a lot of time with her last week. And Lindy has been helping a friend from church at her and her husbands dr office to help raise funds for Guatemala Mission Trip.

It seemed like they were not home but a few hours last week at the most.

I decided that since the kiddo’s had been enjoying their week with friends and family, then husby and I needed some fun time together.

I was really looking for something fun that wouldn’t cost much, when I thought “How about the Farner’s Market?”

Well why not.

Our Farmer’s Market is fairly new.  There is booths with veggies and fruits straight from the gardens, jams/jellies and salsa, homemade items and even live music.

Farmer’s Market might have not been your first thought for a date, but it was early, the weather was beautiful, we could walk around main street holding hands and the items we bought were groceries for the week so we didn’t spend extra money for an activity.

One booth was selling homemde blueberry yougurt pops, Yum!  We each bought one, found a bench and sat down and listened to the bluegrass/folk music that was playing.

So relaxing!

What was also great, was husby helped me decide what to fix for dinner that week by what fresh fruits/veggies we were buying. We ended up with squash, zucchini, green tomatoes (ummm fried green tomatoes), kale, mustard greens, fresh lavender, fresh basil, onions, green beans, potatoes and homemade wheat bread.

With all that we decided on grilled chicken with grilled poatoes and veggies with homemade bread, boneless bbq ribs with mustard greens, kale, fried green tomatoes and corn bread, a chicken/spinach pasta dish with fresh basil, zucchini and  squash added in pasta with fresh green beans on the side and taco night with all the fresh veggies and kale as toppings (maybe not traditional, but hey it works).  And we could use the rest of the homemade bread for sandwiches and make homemade kale chips for the side! I’m getting hungry just thinking about it!

I didn’t forget about the lavender i bought.  That will be made into something something special to share! (:

After the Farmer’s Market, we walked around town, just talking and holding hands, enjoying being with each other.

We stopped at a couple thrift stores for any “thrifty finds, and since we had splurged with the blueberry/yogurt pops at the Farmer’s Market, we settled for a light brunch at a local restaurant (if you have a local coffee shop, stop in there for a light breakfast).

It might have only been a few short hours, but it was a great Morning Date! We had woke up feeling great from a good night’s rest and I wasn’t cranky (yes i get cranky) from the stress of a full day. I do believe there will be many more morning dates in our future.

Remember, having a day out with the one you love, doesn’t mean you have to spend a lot of money. We spent a total of $20, for brunch and our thrifty finds, and we spent $20 at the Farmer’s Market which came out of our grocery budget.

Find an activity you both enjoy and build from it.

Be checking back for more posts of “Summer Dates on a Budget.”

Love Miranda