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Seth and I love quality time date nights instead of just watching a show for two reasons: 1. We are able to talk/communicate more and 2. We RARELY can agree on a show haha. If you know us in person, you know Seth and I are both kind of nerdy anyway and we’ve come up with some fun (for us!) and different date night ideas that don’t require a babysitter!

1. Paint by numbers for adults: We discovered these when we were spending endless hours at the Ronald McDonald House in Seattle unable to go out in public because of Oliver. These things take forever and make you look like a decent artist (haha!). You get a lot of hours of entertainment out of a little money with these! We usually put a no-brainer show on in the background like Survivor. I personally wouldn’t ever hang one of these up in my house, but it is a really similar vibe of doing a puzzle.

2. Sudoku Racing: I think this started on an airplane flight one time when Seth and I had those airline magazines with Sudoku in them. Since they were the same puzzle, we raced to see who could get it done the fastest. The fun part is that Seth and I are pretty equally matched so it is about 50/50 who wins each time. We buy matching Sudoku books from the dollar store and race to see who gets done first. You could also do this with crossword puzzles, word searches, etc.

3. Puzzles: These are a little trickier with little kids running around but is really similar to doing a paint-by-number. We have a big piece of plywood that we do the puzzle on so we can move it to a place the kids can’t reach during the day. We are able to talk to each other and usually have a no-brainer show on in the background. We did this National Park puzzle during quarantine (but PNW instead of California) and it was really fun! If you get REALLY into it, you can set a timer and see how fast you can complete a 1000 piece puzzle. We haven’t gotten quite that intense yet. 😉

4. Cribbage, Dutch Blitz, Code Names Duet and Qwixx: These are our go-to two-player card games. I’d say Seth beats me slightly more often at Cribbage and we had to take a break from Dutch Blitz for a while because I was beating Seth too often…they are both definitely worth learning for a date night!

5. Escape Room Board/Card Game: First of all, if you have never done an escape room, I HIGHLY recommend doing one. They are so much fun! Since so many places are shut down right now, the next best thing is to do an escape room board game. These obviously can only be played one time because once you play it, you know the answers to all the riddles, but a lot of them can be set up to be played again by someone else if you want to re-gift it. These can be fun for groups of 2 to 6!