Top 10 favorite dates

As you know, Mark and I have date night every Tuesday, come rain or come shine. We never make other plans on that evening; our marriage is top priority.

What's fun about having our date night on Tuesdays is that it forces us to be creative about our dates; there's not as much obvious stuff going on on a Tuesday as there is a Thursday, Friday or Saturday! Luckily, I married a creative date planner, so I've had to try hard to match par with his ideas.

Here are my top 10 favorite dates so far (not in order):

1. Cooking class at Artisan Bistro
2. An evening at the Elephant Room, Ken's Donuts and Spider House Cafe (our first date, which we've recreated a couple times!)
3. Painting With a Twist
4. Paella cooking demonstration at Malaga
5. Ventana, restaurant for Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Austin, followed by Viva Chocolato, which is, sadly, no longer around
6. Dinner on a Lone Star River Boat cruise for two on Lake Austin (one of our dating anniversary dates)
7. Painting our own wine glasses one Valentine's Day at a ceramic place, followed by dinner at Gumbo's
8. Getting engaged during adoration of the Blessed Sacrament (that's a date if it's just the two of us and we had the get together scheduled, right?)
9. One of our dates just before we went to Europe in 2010 when I made a French dinner, followed by Italian dessert, followed by watching "Wizard of Oz" since we would be seeing "Wicked, the musical" in London. A little foreshadowing of our soon-after trip to France, Italy and London!
10. Wine tasting classes with Wine for the People. We've taken classes from Rae at the Whip-In, House Wine and St. John Neumann Church. Always a fun time!

Think about how you can go beyond dinner and a movie to create a memorable dating experience!

The day we got engaged: Aug. 29, 2008. Out celebrating with friends!