Resources from this episode:

10 Questions - Free Download

Show Notes:

Well, it's almost Valentine's Day and I just wanted to give you something fun to do. I am giving you 10 fun questions to ask on your next date night. Now you can use these on Valentine's Day, or maybe you can use these on a date night at home after the kids go to bed. But the point is for you to take a break from normal life discussions and conversations, and just to get to know each other more. I hope you have fun with this!

For the full episode, hit play above or read through it below.

Okay. Here are the rules for your next date night. Are you ready?

You're not allowed to talk about anything serious: no schedules, no issues in your marriage, nothing about the kids. Can't talk about money, none of the usual life things, but instead you are going to answer these questions and you're each gonna take turns answering it so you can ask your husband first and then he can ask you.

But these are 10 questions for you to ask, just to have a different and fun conversation on your next date night. You can also get a download of these questions in the show notes. If you want to print them off and take them with you.

Okay, here they are:

1) If you could relive a year in your life, what age would you choose?

2) What would constitute a perfect day for you?

3) If you could change your first name to anything, what would you change it to?

4) How have I changed since we first met?

5) What is your favorite childhood memory?

6) Who do you respect the most, and why?

7) Who is one famous person you'd like to meet?

8) If safety wasn't a concern, what natural disaster would you like to experience and why?

9) Is there something you've dreamed of doing for a long time? If so, why haven't you done it?

10 ) We’re in the middle of a war and we've just realized it's no longer safe to live in our house! We’ve been told we have three days to move. Where are we going?

Download the questions

That's it. That's what the 10 questions kind of fun, like a mixed bag of questions, but I feel like these are the kinds of questions we never really ask each other as husband and wife. And so that's the point is just to kind of get out of the normal conversation and talk about some other fun things.

Now I want to encourage you for a second because this episode is going to be short and sweet, but one thing we get asked a lot about is marriage, and Will and I are coming up on 14 years. That'll be 14 years this June and while our marriage is certainly not perfect, we have learned some things in the last 13 and a half years with four kids. It's so much fun to do life together. And on other days it's really hard.

And that's the beauty of marriage is you have someone that you are sticking with for the rest of your life that you've committed to. So I just want to encourage you, you know, a lot of people ask me, like, what are your tips about marriage, or how do you date your spouse? Or give me some tips about keeping the romance alive with four kids. How in the world do you do that?

And you know, it's different. It looks different for us in every season, but I just wanted to share with you one thing that we kind of agreed to this year that we're trying and so far so good. You know, this is the first time we've been parents of four kids. And with every child, it seems harder and harder to find time just to hang out together, just me and Will, and that's it. And so he looked at me at the beginning of this year and was like, listen, every other week, let's try to have a date night. Let's not ask our parents or siblings or family or any of our regular free babysitters. Let's instead find some official babysitters, let's pay the money and let's try to go out to eat just the two of us every other week. And let's just see how that goes. And he said, if you find the babysitter and you book them, I will plan the date nights. I'll make the plans. So you can focus on one thing, I'll focus on the other. And we will know on these two nights of this month, we're going on a date.

Well, let me just say, finding the babysitters took me a little while. We are really blessed to have so much family living close by to us and around us, but once we went back and forth and I kind of had some phone interviews and talk with them, we nailed it down. And now we have two regular babysitters and it's every other Thursday night for us.

And we just know every other Thursday night, we're going to go on a date and we'll pick the restaurant or the movie or whatever it is that we're doing. And I just make sure the babysitting is lined up and it's been so fun. Now I will say the first two times we brought the baby with us. The babysitters are just getting to know our kids and they're new, so we said, okay, you're going to watch the big three for the first few times and then once you get comfortable with that, we'll leave the baby with you. And it's worked out great because Benji has honestly just slept the whole time that we've been eating dinner. And then I will able to feed him. And it's way easier on the babysitter that way.

But I just kind of wanted to share it that practical way that we are trying to, you know, foster intimacy conversation and connection in our marriage in the season of life, because it does take intentionality. And when you have four kids ages 6, 4, 3, and six months old, which is how old my kids are while I'm recording this episode—it's a lot. It takes a lot of time and intentionality. And while some might feel like it's not super romantic to plan it in advance or just book it and go for it. That's okay. Like it doesn't have to be romantic in the plans of it. You can't really be spontaneous when you have four kids, but the romance happens once you get there and it's worth it. It's worth the planning, it's worth the conversations. And so far, we have really loved it.

Well, I hope that you have a wonderful month of love and a great Valentine's Day. And I hope that you can use these questions on your next date night, or maybe you don't use them on Valentine's Day. You save them for some other random date night just to make it more fun.

However you use them, have fun with them. I hope you enjoy it.

You can find me on Instagram @nancyray on Tuesdays, at least for the next little while.

I'm going to close with words from my favorite rom-com, You've Got Mail. When Tom Hanks tells Meg Ryan,