Saturday, January 26, 2013

Stay Home Date Night Ideas

While writing our upcoming e-newsletter, I began researching on the web for some date night Valentine's Day ideas that you can do at home.  I found a few websites that had some great ideas so I thought I'd combine my favorites from each page and make my own list.  Almost all of the ideas listed below would pair well with a bottle of Fireside wine.
Conversation Heart Bath Fizzies by Bathgasm 

  • Make heart shaped pancakes for breakfast
  • Spread a blanket on the living room floor and have an indoor picnic.
  • Read old cards and letters from each other to one another.
  • Dress up for your evening at home.
  • Enjoy fast food or carry out pizza by candlelight on the living room coffee table by candlelight!
  • Have fun with some of your favorite board games like Monopoly, cards, etc and have fun!
  • Order wine from your favorite winery and have it delivered direct to your door.
  • Surprise your love with a bubble bath for two.
  • Bake cookies together.
  • Have dinner in bed!
  • Stage a progressive love dinner and serve each course in a different room with the dessert ending up in the bedroom!
  • Plan a romantic dinner, with wine or champagne, candles, music... and just relish each other's company.
  • Take a deck of 52 cards. Assign each card a thing to do. For example, Aces get a kiss, etc. Shuffle the deck and spread the cards out. You and your honey take turns drawing cards. Whatever a card says to do, your honey must do. Be creative with your ideas and have fun!
  • Challenge your partner to a game of Wii bowling or any other fun sport that gets the heart pumping!!
  • Hide Hershey's kisses around your home, and tell him or her to save the tags for real life redemption!
  • If you're not married... propose! If you're married... propose again!!
  • Take out the photo albums and stroll through memory lane; 
  • Pop a batch of popcorn and curl up with your favorite movie (or the first movie you ever watched together)
  • Call your favorite radio station and dedicate a song to your love.
  • Every time you walk through a door together, kiss.
  • Give her/him a quick foot or back massage. 
  • Cook a gourmet meal together, or forget the main course and go right to dessert. Whipped cream is great … for sundaes, of course.

Got Plans for Valentine's Day?

If you've been shopping anywhere lately, I'm sure you've noticed all the pink and red hearts all over the place that signify Valentine's Day is approaching soon.  So what are you're plans for that day?  If you're like me, I like to wait until that day to decide my plans which rules out a lot of the fancy dinners where you need a reservation weeks in advance.  I'm also not a fan of paying super inflated prices for a dinner that is doubled or tripled on that day just because, well, its Valentine's Day.  

So what are some other options?  We'll, I have two fun ideas for you that, of course, involve Fireside Winery, require little planning and are very affordable.  The first idea is to bring your sweet heart out to Fireside Winery that evening to enjoy some of your favorite wine and our favorite acoustic guitarist Billy Heller.  If you haven't heard Billy before, you're really missing out.  He has an amazing voice that can sound like James Taylor one second and Willy Nelson the next.  I'd also like to mention we don't discriminate here at the winery so if you just want to come out and enjoy some live music with just your friends, that's fine by us too.  And to sweeten the deal, be sure to save room for dessert because Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory will be onsite sampling and selling their delicious truffles and creams.


Now for idea number two.  If you're from the Cedar Rapid area, you should join us at the newly opened NewBo City Market.  We'll be pouring samples of wine along with a dozen or more other Iowa wineries from 4-8pm. This event, named the Great Grapes of Iowa Wine Festival, was originally scheduled for December last year but due to a blizzard, the event was rescheduled for Valentine's Day.  So for a $10 donation to HACAP, you get a keepsake glass and ability to try wines from all over the state.  And the wines arent the only fun thing to sample at the market.  I'd be sure to check out all the other fabulous food vendors such as the Newbo Cheese Co or That One Cupcake Place (try the Chocolate Everything cupcake!!)  

Of course, you could just pick up a bottle of Fireside wine from your location retailer or from the winery (we ship too!) and enjoy a quiet evening at home too.  Sometimes watching TV on your couch with your super soft pj's and a glass of wine in your hand is the best seat in the house!