Marriage Monday: Defy Gravity

And It’s Monday Again…

Although I really dislike the weekend ending and having to go back to work on Monday mornings, there is one good thing about this silly day of the week. What can make a Monday good, you ask? Marriage Monday! Our weekly date night 🙂

As I’ve mentioned before, we’ve gotten a little lax when it comes to our dates sometimes. Often, we end up on separate couches, Netflix on, sitting in silence. For a while, this scenario made me feel really bad. Like I wasn’t making my marriage as a priority. Even though I had nothing left in my tank, I thought I should suck it up and engage all evening in order for us to be connected. But I’ve learned over the last couple of years, sitting together, neither of us speaking, that’s ok. There are some Mondays, that is just what we need.

Trying Something New

Then, there are other Mondays where we need to go on an adventure. Try something new. Or just get out of the house. Work has slowed down slightly for both of us, so we agreed to do something that’d take some energy. Someone in our Lifegroup mentioned that a local attraction, Defy Gravity, had a Groupon. I checked up on the price and it seemed like a great deal!

We invited with another couple to see if they’d like to join us for this new adventure and they excitedly agreed! We purchased our Groupon and awaited date night. I am always nervous when going to do new things because I absolutely hate when I don’t know what to expect. People have told me this is a controlling issue.

I think I changed clothes about 4 times, trying to find just the right thing that I’d feel comfortable in, but not be hindered by. When we showed up to Defy Gravity, our friends were dressed similarly, so I was relieved. There were a couple other items we had to purchase for our “jump”, so, even though we did get a deal, it wasn’t quite as cheap as we were hoping. But within minutes, we were over that…

Figuring It All Out

We had 20 minutes before our “jump time”, so we used our attraction options. We each did the laser maze and then moved to another where we individually took on a ninja. The maze was lack luster, but the ninja fight was INTENSE! It was a great warm up for our jump!

When we actually got out on to the “open floor”, which is just a bunch of trampolines, we were like kids! We jumped and jumped trying to find our bearings. A few of the regulars (pre-teen kids) showed us how to do flips and other tricks. We attempted some! It was pretty clear that we were not as young and wild and free as we used to be 🙂

We took a break and tried out the free fall; you run and jump into a big pit and the puffy cloud catches you. That was interesting, but not my favorite. There was also a slam dunk area. We had a lot more fun there jumping and trying to dunk. The boys really had a blast on this attraction.

Defying Gravity

When we went back to the open area, we were feeling much more comfortable and ended up trying a lot more tricks. They’d opened up another big area (dodge ball was over), so we could have some space from all the kids. And now it’s time to get crazy! We ran, spun, flipped, fell, bounced, slipped, and laughed to tears. What an amazing date night!

The couple who joined us were still new friends. We’d only met 2 1/2 months prior. This was an excellent activity for, not only date night, but also for us to get to know them better. Nothing like acting like a bunch of kids to bring us all together. We were so happy to show them our wonderful tradition of Marriage Monday and look forward to trying something new again with them!

Being Intentional

Seth and I know we can’t say, “We’ll get a date in sometime.” We have understood that “sometime” might not get here. And weekends can be a wild card for us. Things come up, people need us to help or attend things. All of which we do together as much as possible. Occasionally, we can have a date on the weekend and that’s great! But if we aren’t able to make that happen, we know we can always look to Monday.

Marriage Monday continues to evolve for us; we have the quiet nights at times, and others where we get out and about. Something new for us is inviting other couples along for the ride. It’s important for us to invest in our marriage by spending time with other couples and having good conversations or even just being silly. This addition to our routine continues to be one of the most important parts of our week and I am forever grateful to my friend who gave me the Marriage Monday suggestion.