When you have busy kids, you have busy weeknight lives. And if you're lucky, you can take your spouse with you to the evening activity and spend it on the new kind of date night we've adopted! Date nights are hard to come by. We are lucky, because McKinley loves to spend at least one night a weekend with my parents, but not everyone has that opportunity. It can be weeks or months before you get a date night, so if possible, maybe you can adopt our new trick!
McKinley has a weekly drawing class that's an hour long, so that's an hour we can spend together. And what do most parents do with free evenings these day? Binge watch their favorite shows on any streaming network they have subscribed to. We may not be binge watching, but we are taking advantage of being able to watch one hour a week of our favorites shows we can't watch on the DVR. As of late, it's Almost Family on FOX. Have you watched? We love it!
So, in addition to watching one of our recorded shows on HULU, we're dining al fresco. Okay not really. We're dining in the comfort of our front seat of the car! But hey, this is the new kind of date night and we're making the most of it. And, we're saving money. That's the big thing. Imagine eating out every Thursday night? That's roughly $20 a week. And it would be fast food. And that's more weight gain. So, made at home dinners it is!
I also have to be mindful of the meals for Thursday. Soup, spaghetti, or tacos wouldn't really work. I need something that's not going to drip all over the places. We've done French bread pizza, sausage and potatoes, and last night it was quiche. And I've been using the plastic containers we keep from lunch meat, but I wanted something a little "classier" for date night. So, I rummaged around in my mom's cabinets and "borrowed" her Tupperware she's had since the 70s (just look at the colors), and a couple of Pampered Chef measuring bowls with lids, which make for the cutest way to transport our dinner and making it feel like an upscale picnic! Oh, and the darling Tupperware cups I found at an estate sale this summer were the perfect way to store muffins! I also use them daily for McKinley's lunch. This is also my way of changing my carbon footprint by not using nearly as much plastic!
So here's what took place. I made the quiche earlier in the morning, so I had plenty of time to pack everything up. With his class starting at 6:15, he eats in the car, so I start packing dinner for the whole family around 5:15. (And his dinner consisted of a hotdog and sides. He doesn't eat quiche!) If I had waited to make the quiche at 4:00, I would have been strapped for time. I waited to the bake the muffins in the afternoon, and while they baked, I prepped the fruit bowls. Everything was coming together. I heated up the quiche a piece at a time, added it to the Tupperware bowls, packed up all the food, and we headed out the door!
Check it out!
What I do need is a chic way to transport the food. My J.Crew bag, though super compact, took a beating when a fork poked through on the way home!
Two cold parents chillin' in the car! We ate, chatted a little, watched our show (which always creates a conversation), and then picked up our kiddo in the classroom at 7:15!
Other ways we're dating these days is watching The Bachelor on a sleepover night while keeping the funds in check by staying home. We made the conscience decision to keep going out for dinner to a minimum this calendar year. Maybe once a month and trying a new local place to support our KC entrepreneurs! And, we are thinking ahead to summer and a couple of out of town family weekends.
What are you doing for fun date nights? Are you staying in as well? Going out? Let's talk about all of the ways we can date in this new age and keeping that dating spark alive!
XO,
Andrea
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