A Forever Date With Dad

A good friend called to tell me she was going to be alone on Valentine’s Day and wondered if I’d like to be her date. Since Mike and I don’t normally go out on Valentine’s Day, I told her that sounded like fun. To make the deal a little sweeter (get it . . . Valentine’s Day . . . sweeter . . .) she said she’d watch the girls so Mike and I could go on a date on Friday!

I convinced Mike that this would be so perfect for all of us (I have my ways, you just don’t worry about how I did the convincing, alright?), and my gf and I started planning our date. 

Then I had this great idea. Since Mike and I have never really been “Valentine’s Day” kind of peeps, I thought it would be a sweet tradition for him to take the girls out on a date every year for Valentine’s Day.

My idea was that if he starts now, and it’s something they do every year, when they are older and they either don’t have a boyfriend OR some stupid boy has broken their heart, Valentine’s Day will always be special to them because their dad has made it that way. And I suppose when they someday marry and their husband wants to take over the Valentine date, he can. 🙂

Does that make sense?

Mike officially called the girls and asked them out on a date. They were very excited about it, but weren’t really sure what a “date” was.  Zack and Jacob had each taken the girls out on dates before, but that was quite a while ago, so their only frame of reference was that Mom and Dad go on dates and they get left at home. So the idea that they were going on a date with Dad seemed pretty exciting.

Mike took the girls out for a romantic dinner for three at Rudy’s Barbecue (that man knows how to show a girl a good time), followed by a fun evening of toy browsing. Nikki and Shannay love to toy browse and are surprisingly good-natured about not purchasing anything.

I texted Mike in the middle of the date and asked him to be sure and take pictures, because, you know, he’s a dad, and dads don’t always think of those things. He started by sending me these pictures. (I’m guessing that at the moment I texted him they must have already been in the toy store.)