Date night

My husband and I used to go out a lot before we had kids, like everyone else does probably.
We still went out at least every other week, probably more after Leeann was born. My parents, my sister and Jan's brother all just lived about 2 hours away and we either drove down to visit them or they came to visit us, so there was always someone there to watch Leeann.
When Leeann was about 1 my sister moved to Kaiserslautern only about 20 min away from us, so we always had an instant babysitter, poor Ute.
Anyway, that completely changed when we moved to the states in 2007. Leeann was about to turn 2 and I was 7 months pregnant with Tyler, pretty much over night there was no more family living anywhere close to us. The closest family was in Tennessee, a 26 hour drive away.
I hated it. I hated the heat, I was used to spending most of the time with two very close friends in Germany, Nadja and Ramona. I met them both in birth prep. class, they were about my age and had kids pretty much exactly the same age Leeann was/is.
We went hiking with our strollers or we let the kids play in the backyard while we watched them and had coffee. We talked about everything and it really broke my heart when we moved.
So there I was in Phoenix in August, pregnant, moody and very lonely. It was so hot that you couldn't go outside until it was too dark to do anything and I had no one to spend the time with when Jan was at work. I felt very sorry for myself. It didn't get better when they moved us in roach-infested government housing.
I started praying and Jan started taking me to church. I found all my strength in God and I realized that this move had been a way to pull me closer to him. And now I'm glad I went through this. I'm not sure I have had the strength for a lot of things if I wouldn't have learned how to cling to the Lord at this point.
On November 14th 2007 I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy and the first thing he did, before he even cried, was peeing on me, just like his sister 26 months earlier, so the first thing he did was make me laugh, and he still does :)
We have found many great friends here, we got back what we lost and then some. But what we didn't get back was time with each other. After Tyler was born, me and Jan hardly ever spent any time together alone. Babysitters cost money and we just didn't feel like it was important, we were spending time with each other, but the kids were always around.
When he was deployed for a total of 7 months I realized how much I really missed that. So we decided to hire a babysitter every other week so we can have a date night. I need time with my hubby, I don't want us to lose touch along the way. I love him and he is my best friend, I need to spend time with him alone. And what greater gift can you give your children than happily married parents?