Island Adventure: August Date Night In

Date Night In Box knocked it out of the park this month with their island adventure theme. A tropical menu and fun games made it one of our favorite boxes yet!  (And you better believe I dressed up for the occasion in my tropical shirt.) 

We made dinner and cocktails and enjoyed the table talk portion of the date night outside (we want to make sure to soak up as many evenings outside as we can before the weather gets chilly!). I always think this part of the date is fun, because the table talk guide gives us questions and topics that we normally wouldn't talk about on any other date.

After the dinner we made our own seashell candle. DNI provided the seashell, the wick, and the wax to melt. It was super easy and a lot of fun. Plus now we have a little memento of this date night.

Next we played all the Island Games: think Olympics, but Date Night In style. Nate and I are both just a LIIIIITTTLE competitive. The games were categorized by a matter of the body, a matter of the mind, and a matter of relationship. First up, matter of the body. We took our empty date night in box, used the golf tees and ping pong balls provided, filled our little squirt guns, set our timer and tried to knock the ping pong balls off the top with the water. It was hilarious, and I may or may not have squirted Nate more than once. Overall, tons of fun--and I was the winner.

A matter of the mind was next. We received word challenge cards, which included an assortment of letters and we had to come up with as many words as possible using those letters within the allotted time. I love games like this. Scattergories, Scrabble.... anything with words and letters, and I'm in!

After the word challenge, we played a game similar to the newlywed game. We were given a set of questions that we had to answer AND write what we thought our partner would say. It was pretty funny. Although, we did well with our answers. Nate and I are usually on the same page, so it was nice to see that if we ever have to do a game like this in public, we'd be okay.

Last but not least, we played an island version of battleship. Who doesn't love a good game of battleship? It takes me back to elementary school. I loved that game! I guess I'm a sucker for a good strategic game. Nate won this one... I guess we're even. ;)

To end our night we wrote a message in a bottle. We described ourselves and wrote a note of encouragement for the finder. We're not quite sure where we're going to leave the bottle yet (obviously we will not be, nor does DNI condone us throwing this in the water). If you have any ideas let us know! Where would be a fun location to leave a message in a bottle? Maybe a local park?

This DNI box was so full of activities that it kept us busy and having fun. My favorite part may have been the ping pong ball game though. Also--Congratulations to Kara, who won our giveaway!

Dine and Dance: July Date Night In Box

We got back last weekend from our 24 day vacation to Michigan. When we got home our Date Night In Box was waiting for us....at our neighbor's house. The mailman failed to follow the instructions to stop our mail.... thank goodness for great neighbors! We were pumped to get it!

July's date was all about dining, dancing, and dashing.

Part of the instructions were to have the partner who doesn't make dinner as often, cook for the night. However, Nate and I both like to cook, and both cook dinner frequently, so we decided to make dinner together. It was a homemade pizza (one of my favorite meals!). We had a lot of fun! DNI provided our chef hats, pizza crust, pizza sauce, parmesan, and Italian seasoning. I personally loved wearing the chef hats. It put a silly spin on things, and I know that we can use them to bake with Gabe in the future (he has one of his own too!). The pizza turned out delicious! Pepperoni and banana peppers, which is a combo we frequently do at home or order in anyway. The menu spoke to my Italian soul. There was a vegetarian option as well. Gabe helped us make our dessert before we went to bed so we could refrigerate it and eat it cool: Cannoli dip with mini chocolate chips. All I can say is YUM!

While the pizza was cooking we did a choreographed dance. There were three dances to choose from: a fun wedding dance, a hip hop routine, and an old school dance number. Nate and I chose the wedding routine. I laughed SO HARD. I'm not the best dancer, and normally I don't get out on the dance floor unless Whitney's "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" comes on, or I've had a couple of cocktails. The moves weren't hard (which I'm sure was on purpose), and Nate made up some silly moves of his own that kept me laughing the entire time.

After dinner and dancing we played a competitive game called Date Dash. We each took turns reading a card and giving 5 answers that corresponded to the category in 30 seconds. I won! Some of the cards were tricky, which made it even more fun. Then we played a game to find out which pizza is our spirit animal. Nate and I were both supreme. I guess we REALLY know that we're soulmates now. ;)

As always, we had a blast and can't wait for August! If you want to get in on the fun, here's the link to grab your own box!

Great Love: June Date Night In Box

If I could go back to any point in history I think it would be the roaring 20s. Something about the glam of flappers, the danger of the gangsters, and the mystery of the speakeasies makes it my first choice if they ever come through with a time travel invention. This Date Night In Box allowed us to experience the fun and the mystery of the 20s without leaving the house. It did NOT disappoint. It has been our favorite box yet!

We started the night by making our cocktails and cooking the recipes from the recipe card. They were all Gatsby themed, which I was pumped about (The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite novels!). We decided on one appetizer, the entree, and the dessert and they were all delicious. We even made an extra batch of brownies to share with family and friends and they all RAVED about them. The Marina Makes recipes have not disappointed! The cocktail was a mint julep. I'm not a huge bourbon fan, but this is one way I can definitely enjoy it! We had dinner outside and had a lot of fun doing the table talk portion of the date.

We then moved inside and queued up the 1980s movie Clue (totally terrible and awesome at the same time), and started playing the games. The first game was a murder mystery game inspired by, you guessed it, Clue! But it also had a go-fish aspect. It was a ton of fun, and I kicked Nate's butt! Then we played the dominoes game Mexican Train. I've never played this before so we took our time reading the directions before diving in. I also won this game.... TWICE! You bet I rubbed it in ;)

We ended the night by enjoying our dessert and creating a time capsule. We filled it with items to remind us of now. Pictures of our family, items from our disney trip along with other trinkets and treasures. We hid it away in Nate's closet to be opened in 10 years or so. We can't wait to see how life and our family changes in those 10 years.

The only part of the box that we didn't enjoy on this night...but enjoyed later was the moonshine & co fudge! It was delicious but because we had those AMAZING brownies, we saved the fudge for a later day.

Overall--we had a blast and give this Date Night In Box and A+. Stay tuned for July......

Sensing More: May Date Night In

We were excited when our May Date Night In Box appeared on our doorstep. Unboxing is one of my favorite things to do, because it's always a surprise! 

Checking out our tasting card and our score card for the caramel taste-test. Baby Monitor included.

I was a bit surprised when I found that there wasn't a physical Date Guide like there was last month. However, this month's theme was all about using our five senses, and this is where our sense of sound came in. I'm a visual learner though, so I was excited to see they had an electronic copy of the Date Guide available online. I took a peek before we started. We listened as we prepared our meal (SUPER YUMMY) as well as when we did table talk while enjoying our Mediterranean-inspired small plates outside. Table talk made us think about our relationship through the use of our five-senses. It was unique and definitely made us think back to the past and laugh a little. We talked about things we remember each other wearing all the time, the first time we spotted each other (Ahh....youth camp love), the first meal we cooked for each other, and more! After we were done with table talk we moved inside to enjoy the rest of our night.

Next was the massage portion of the date. This was my favorite part. Nate's too--I never EVER give him a massage and I always ask for them, because I'm the worst. Date Night In gave us several different massage techniques to try. We had to read them and our partners had to guess which type of massage was being given. It was fun to guess. They played spa music in the background and it was truly like being at a massage parlor. I was a big fan.

We decided to break this date up into separate portions so we could enjoy them throughout the weekend. The next night we completed a puzzle together, which was filled with items that could enhance a date night in. After we completed the puzzle we had to recall what we saw while the puzzle was hidden. It's amazing what you miss when it's right before your eyes! It was fun to help each other out though.

Skip ahead to Monday nap time, because--why not? And we did the last part of the date. The caramel tasting. This reminded me a lot of wine tasting. There were several different caramel flavors and we had a tasting mat and a score card. We used our sense of smell first then our sense of taste. We scored them at the end. My favorite was basil cayenne. After our tasting we finished up with guided questions about our relationship. Sometimes these questions are my favorite part because they're not things that we would talk about normally.

All in all we had a wonderful experience again and cannot wait to see what June has in store for us! Want to check it out for yourselves? Click Here to go to Date Night In Boxes online.

Small Plate with Flat Bread from Trader Joe's. All recipes were included in oru Dat

Let Love Grow: Our First Date Night In Box

As most of you know, Nate and I are toddler parents. Gabe is our life! However, getting out for a date night isn't always on our list of priorities, even though we would like it to be. Are you a toddler parent too? How often do you get out for a date night with your significant other?

Nate and I are so fortunate to have his parents nearby. They LOVE to babysit Gabe. When they aren't available, we have some great teachers from Gabe's school that we can reach out to. Yet, we still don't get out very often. In fact, we're homebodies and totally okay with it.

That's why when we stumbled upon Date Night In Boxes we were pumped! We tend to be creatures of habit and our lives are busy so most times we love to just sit on the couch together with a bowl of popcorn. Having a curated date with no pre-planning necessary was super appealing. It's also a refreshing way to mix things up and break out of our routine.

This date night was amazing. We got a menu with simple, delicious recipes, step-by-step instructions for fun activities to do together and even a Spotify playlist to play in the background while we had our date. Best of all, we were able to do this after Gabe had gone to sleep for the night, no babysitter needed!

We jumped in with meal prep. Honestly, Nate crushed this all on his own. We wanted to get ready for each other and break out of our joggers and hoodie routine, so while I got ready, Nate prepped the meals, then we swapped and I plated everything. We started out with a blackberry mint cocktail (it could also be made into a mocktail), dined on an entree of farro with fresh pesto and veggies, and had lemon cookies for dessert. Everything was DELICIOUS. We made a few tweaks to the recipes (we used vodka instead of limoncello for the drinks and got vegan pesto from Trader Joe's instead of making our own), but we stored the recipe card for safe keeping to use in the future. They are definitely recipes we'd like to revisit. 

It was a beautiful spring night here in Central, PA so we decided to have dinner outside. Date Night In provided us with a candle for the table, so we lit the candle and queued up the Spotify playlist and sat down to dinner. While we ate we started the guided activities. The first activity was table talk. In the theme of let love grow, we talked about the different stages in relationships. We read the descriptions out loud and discussed whether we thought our relationship was currently in that stage, beyond it, or if it would be a stage we would get to in the future. It was fun to talk about the past and exciting to discuss our future.

After dinner we moved inside to finish our activities. First we planted our own basil plant with the kit we received in the box. We're super excited to watch it bloom and grow on our windowsill. Then we did our relationship timeline. This was all about the future. We rolled a die and whatever number came up we would discuss what we wanted for our relationship in 3 weeks, 5 months, 6 years, etc. This activity was tougher than we thought it would be. Sometimes it's hard to think that far in advance for me. Nate wasn't much better, so we took turns. A future Disney trip and more baby Glockes found their way onto our timeline. 

We ended our night with a game and our cookies! Our Night In Box came with dual sided cards. One cards had questions designed to bring people closer together. The other side was a regular set of playing cards. Some of the questions were silly and others were very serious. I loved doing this activity with Nate. It definitely was great to talk about all the things, and now we have a sweet new set of cards to play cribbage with (does this make us old?)

Overall we had a blast, connected and talked, and enjoyed ourselves and all of the activities that were provided. We are looking forward to our next Date Night In Box!