Family Date Night

It's very important to B and myself, that we do our best as parents to raise our kids as Christ followers.  Part of that is teaching and demonstrating to them how guys are supposed to treat girls, and vice versa.  We have started implementing family date nights to help accomplish this.  It's a lot of fun, and the kids love it.  Here's how we've done it.

We pick a night, usually a Friday or Saturday night, and decide it's time for family date night.  Since we have 3 of each gender, every guy has a girl as his date.  Since it is a date, we all get dressed up nice, and we pick a nice place to eat.  One of my favorite places is Red Lobster, so that's where we've gone the last 2 times.  Before that, we went to a Chinese restaurant near our old house in Alief.  

B teaches the boys how to properly escort their dates, and I teach the girls how to let the guy hold the door and chair for you when you sit down.  Now not all ladies like the guy to order for them, but that's how we practice.  Abe escorts Rin, and Wes escorts Ell.  We sit across from your date, so you can look at them and practice having conversations with them.  Since we are at a nice place, we sit properly, and we keep our voices low.  The kids still color and do the kid activities, but for the most part, they act like little adults.  One of the hardest things about this is teaching them how to keep their napkins in their laps.  They start off strong, but as the dinner progresses, more and more napkins drop to the ground, and then W and A retrieve them from our feet.  That's one area we need to work on desperately.  B teaches the boys how to pay and tip the server, before escorting us out of the restaurant.  The most recent family date night was free since I still had gift cards to Red Lobster, so we decided to stop for FroYo on the way home.  We have a Menchies very close to our house, so that's where we ended our family date night.  The boys opened our doors and escorted us in, once again, and every couple shared a cup of froyo with mix-ins. 

I couldn't have asked for a better date night with my hubby and my kids.  This is one tradition that I hope we continue even past the time when our kids are teens because eating with family is just so special!