Day 365: A Date

For my last act of love, I took you on a date while our kids were in AWANAS. We went to a Chinese restaurant in town called Red Pepper. Again, we had our youngest, but that was cake compared to having all three. We had excellent service from a very kind server and the food was great. I ordered the lemon chicken and I have no clue what you ordered, though I’m thinking it was something Chinese.

I’m glad I got to spend some quality time with you for my last act of 365 Acts of Love. May it be one in a lifetime of acts of love.

Day 358: Woodie’s Bar-B-Q

Our kids started attending AWANAS, which makes me happy. For one thing, they’re learning the Bible. For another thing, we get to drop them off every Thursday and have a date, with our youngest as a ride-along. Taking care of a single kid is soooooo easy compared to three!

For this AWANA date, I took you to Woodies BBQ in Goleta, a place we’ve been itching to go to. I ordered a burger, like I always do, and you ordered a chicken sandwich. We were so excited. However, we weren’t too impressed with the food. [Don’t judge the restaurant by us. We know lots of people who love it.] Even still, we had a blast!

Day 354: Apple Cider?

I’m going to be real honest here. I don’t know what act of love I did for you on day 354. I have in a Word document that for my act of love on day 354, “Apple Cider.” I thought that maybe you would remember so I asked you if you did:

“No, I don’t remember doing anything with apple cider,” you replied

“Well, I have it in my notes that we did something with apple cider on day 354.”

Apparently, whatever we did, it wasn’t life changing. But it had something to do with  apple cider. I’d like to think we spent the day in a cabin on a lake, sipping apple cider by a warm fire. Or maybe, we just had some apple cider together at home. Nah–I’m sure it was the former.

Day 351: An Attempt at Loving Others

There’s a 90-year-old lady who comes to our church, who’s friendly and caring, and who lives alone in a retirement community. She has some family in the area, but I don’t think they visit her often. I thought that it would be good, given her situation, to have her over to our house for dinner on Thursday as one of my/our acts of love for those in our community. I had been in contact with her about coming over, so Thursday was our planned time. But I couldn’t get ahold of her that day and I didn’t know where exactly she lived. So the dinner didn’t work out.

Instead, when we dropped our kids off at a church function later in the evening, I took you out to Flavor of India, a local restaurant that you’d been begging me to take you to. The food was outstanding and we both had an excellent time. Our server was super cool. He told us about India, including its culture and religion, and about the exotic land of Detroit, where his sister lives and is expecting a baby.

I’m super excited to go back there during lunch when they have their buffet. Although I enjoyed the food, it would be nice to have a bigger selection so we could sample all the different flavors of India.

Day 337: Bike Ride

For this act of love, I had someone watch our kids while we went on a bike ride together. Oh what fun we had! We only rode around for about 30 minutes, but it was great just being out with you and acting goofy with you and looking at houses in the nearby neighborhoods.

You had just finished running, which was not ideal because you weren’t exactly in the mood for a bike ride (you got into it, though). But that was the time that worked out for our schedules and the babysitter’s schedule. If you keep up the run/bike combo, though, maybe you can enter a biathlon. 😉 Also, we had some sparkling cider that I wanted to use. My plan was that we’d bike to the beach, then drink our cider. But we didn’t have enough time.

Anyway, we still loved our bike ride. We really need to get out together without the kids on a regular basis. It’s so good for our relationship.

 

Day 283: Your Night Out

Since you found out about the blog, you’ve dropped hints here and there about what acts of love you want me to do. Well, on Saturday you told me exactly what I would do. You said that I was going to watch the kids while you went out to coffee with your best friend. You didn’t sound demanding and I didn’t mind being told what to do. In fact, I was overjoyed. I really had no idea what act to do that day, so you made things very easy.

On another note, I let you take a look at the blog a little while back. Well, you really, really, really loved it, but you only read about ten posts. After that, you said that you wanted to wait until the blog was finished to read the rest. That’s fair. I think I jumped the gun by showing you. That’s because I’ve been itching to show you for months.

Day 267: Lil’ Toot

Our kids weren’t too keen on the fact that we went on a boat without them. In fact, they’ve been downright upset that I’ve lately taken you out alone so much. Their feelings are justified, to an extent—if I’m always doing fun stuff with you and not them, that’s not cool. Then again, they need to realize that dad’s going to treat mom differently than he treats them.

At any rate, I tried to show them that I think they’re special too by taking them (and you) around the Santa Barbara harbor on a water taxi.

Lil’ Toot was her name and she bore it well. Confidently she tooted her little horn to alert the surrounding vessels of her presence as she bravely navigated the choppy waters of the harbor.

After our rendezvous on Lil’ Toot, we meandered through the harbor’s Maritime Museum, which was free for the day.

We all had a great time. O Lil’ Toot, warrior of the waves, we thank thee. Though you were a Lil’ Toot, you gave us a big adventure.

Day 261: Anniversary Date #1

This year, a combination of two factors limited the way in which we could celebrate our anniversary. First, we didn’t have much extra cash. When some people say that, they’re trying to explain why they went on a ten-day rather than a two-week cruise. When I say it, I mean that I didn’t know whether I could afford a plastic ring from a vending machine. Second, we have our ten-month old, which means that we we couldn’t be away for very long. So I had to get creative. In the end, I managed to plan three inexpensive dates for us.

For our first date, we visited the observatory at Westmont College. On the way there, we went to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in Montecito. I half expected to see Oprah or Steve Martin when we walked in. But to our surprise, not a single person was in the shop, let alone Lady O. The shop was closed. Still, the barista was nice enough to make us coffee anyway. We drank our coffees outside, enjoying the evening glow of downtown Montecito.

Those Christmas-tree lights in the background did their part to make up  Montecito’s “evening glow.”

After we finished our coffee, we went to the observatory. We were able to see Saturn through the telescope, which was really cool. But it looked fake. It reminded me of the glow-in-the-dark sticker of Saturn that I had on my ceiling when I was a kid.

Just outside the observatory, there was a deck from which we could see over Montecito. When we were done looking at the stars and planets, we stood on the deck enjoying the view and the quietness of the evening. Then, you said, “This is all I need.” “What?” I replied, “an observatory?!” Then I said, pretending to be you: “All I need is a dog, a farmhouse, and an observatory and I’ll be happy.” You hit me and laughed, then said, “I don’t need anything! Just a dog, a farmhouse, an observatory, and this paddle ball! That’s all I need! . . . Actually, I meant that I only need a quiet and peaceful place to live, like this.”

We both really enjoyed this date. At this stage in our lives, we feel special any time we have a few hours alone and out of the house. Happy anniversary!

Day 255: A Date

Over the weekend, we went to Cambria for a family reunion. I took you on a date to Main Street Grill while we were there.

It was nice to revisit the town where we spent our first year of marriage and the burger place that we’ve eaten at more times than I’d like to know. Doing things like that helps us reconnect.

Day 244: At the Movies

On Tuesday, we went on a date of sorts: we watched a movie in the community center of our apartment complex.

On Tuesday afternoon, I went to the apartment-complex office and rented the community center just for us for the evening. After dinner, we made some kettle corn and went to the community center, plugged our laptop in to the big screen TV there, and watched Emma.

We took the girls with us, but they played on the floor while we watched the movie. About halfway through, though, all three girls got tired and whiny, so we took them home and put them to bed. We tried to finish the movie at home, but we both fell asleep. (Good thing we’d both seen this one a couple of times already.)

This was my attempt at giving you a break from the busyness of the week by taking you on a quasi-date. It cost us nothing and was quite enjoyable, even though it was cut short.