Our January Date

Jeff and I went our "January" date last weekend from my Year of Dates Christmas gift to him.  To see the full idea for the dates gift, click here.


I have been looking forward to this date for a while.  To recap, I let him open his January envelope a little early (on Christmas) and the date was a bit extravagant since it was also to celebrate our 4 year anniversary.  I booked a Swedish couples massage at the Abhasa Spa at the Royal Hawaiian hotel.  The Royal Hawaiian is where we got married 4 years ago (wow - seems like forever)

 

Just being at this hotel, surrounded by tourists,  makes me feel like I'm on vacation.  And, it was romantic walking around reliving different moments of our wedding ceremonies.  We got to the spa around 4:45 pm and checked in for our massage.

Jeff had never had a massage before, so I was excited to share this with him.  My mom treated me to this massage exactly 4 years before, the day before my wedding to de-stress! (great gift Mom!).  And, after we changed into our robes, we had our massages in this beautiful outdoor cabana.

That was the fastest 50 minutes of my life.  As any mothers who breastfeed can attest to, your neck gets extremely sore when nursing at 3 in the morning and this massage was just what the doctor ordered!  Afterwards, I had arranged for dinner at Azure Restaurant, at the Royal Hawaiian hotel.  I had called way in advance so that we could sit outside, right on the beach, next to where we got married.

I love everything about this restaurant.  Don't you wish you could decorate your house like this? I love the subtle Moroccan feel of it with the beautiful lanterns (darn, if only we could have brought some those back with us from Morocco).  The food was delicious and they even brought us a free chocolatey dessert for our anniversary - how did they know that was what I was going to order anyway?

It was great to get our first real date away from the boys (though I missed them terribly) and just really necessary  for our relationship to talk about things other than the office and the boys.  Thanks Mom & Dad for babysitting!  And, I really think it helped that I planned out the specific dates for the whole year, because sometimes life and those essential trips to Costco (I swear, going to Costco is usually like a big adventure for us and the highlight of our weekend!) get in the way.

Thanks also to Shannon at Find the joy in the journey for this awesome idea.  I think every couple should do this - when you have kids, you neglect your relationship a bit and it deserves every bit of work and attention that your children require to remain healthy!

In that vein, I've also made some relationship resolutions (not sure if Jeff is reading this).
1. I'm going to lose a fight with my husband - not in a Brad Pitt, Fight Club way, but I'm going to give in even when I really don't want to when we're arguing.  So, I guess I'm saying,  I'll try not to be so stubborn.

2.  As we undergo renovations in our office, I came across this article in Coastal Living magazine - "Love in the time of renovations" - how appropriate for us.  It discussed the stresses and strains of undergoing a renovation and there was a quote in there "Men need respect more than they need sex."...So, honey, I will try to remember that one.  No, seriously, as we deal with these headaches  daily of added expense of our reno project, I will try (that's the operative word here) not to bulldoze you with my strong opinions.

3.  I will let something go daily.  Something that typically drives me crazy.  Meaning, I won't mention if I see your socks on the floor - there's no need to start an argument over socks!

Oh, and here's a sneak peek at February.  Jeff opens each of his date envelopes on the first of the month.  So, this is what we're going to do this month (that's me in the picture!)