Olympic Date

So the 2012 Summer Olympics just wrapped up.  I had wanted to do an olympic themed date, but we had other things going on, didn't have good olympic reception in our house, excuses, excuses, excuses.  But here are some ideas I had to bring an olympic theme to a date or a party.

Opening Ceremonies -- Since this is a celebration of all nations, you can make your dinner and date truly global.  Pick each dinner course from a different country.  Display random nicknacks you've picked up from your travels and wonder what you'll ever use them for.  Reuse decorations from previous dates to exotic places.  Get out pictures from countries you've visited or even just want to visit.  Invite friends over and have them bring a dish and something to share and tell from where they are from or a country they have visited.  One thing about the opening ceremonies is that no one is competing yet, so you'll have less trash talking than if your favorite country is competing against someone else's favorite country.

If you want to focus on just one or two countries, pick a longer team event with a country you can get excited about.  Plan dinner and other activities around that country, and then cheer them on.  Or you and your date can pick different countries with a friendly wager about who will win.

Where ever you are traveling to, don't forget your passport.  The Dating Divas had a recent creative craft contest won by the Passport to Love.  Along with the passport come many creative date ideas with an international twist.

Love - Love on the Tennis Court

When keeping score in tennis, a zero score is called "love".  You could make use of this in a clever invitation for this date.  But if your date isn't familiar with the usage, they might just be confused.

Since moving into our new apartment complex with it own tennis court, I had been wanting to play tennis.  Not finding any rackets at the thrift stores, I was happy to find my old tennis racket (and my brother let me have his) at my parents' house when we were visiting.  With our level of play (and that of our boys) having old, beaten-up rackets was just fine.

As I tried to figure out what to make for dinner, google told me that bananas and pretzels are associated with tennis.  We didn't have bananas, nor yeast.  So I found a yeastless pretzel recipe and made pretzels and pretzel dogs (wrapping the dough around hot dogs and cooking them like pretzels).  They turned out a little too pretzel tasting.  Dropping them in boiling water-baking soda mixture gives them the characteristic soft pretzel taste, but I think I used the amount of baking soda for the quick dip recipe but then let them boil for a minute like I had seen in another recipe.  So the flavor was a little strong, but still edible.

We went out to the tennis court and hit the ball around a little.  My wife had requested an athletic date, but her wrist was hurting, so tennis wasn't quite the right game.  But we had a little fun out there, and it was nice to finally use our tennis court.