“Actually, the best gift you could have given her was a lifetime of adventures.” — Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Two years ago, D and I decided to change the way we planned for our weekend activities.  In the spirit of spontaneity, we thought of writing down our ideas of a good way to spend a weekend, and add a twist of randomly selecting what to do in a sort of  ‘pick our adventure for the day’ kind of way. So I dug up a mason jar and cut out small pieces of paper. There I wrote fun activities we could think of, from quiet dinners and watching Netflix at home, to outdoor activities and those that will entail a couple of hours’ drive.

Here are some examples of the things we wrote down:

• Walk and eat at Binondo, Chinatown
• Play badminton
• Early morning stroll at Roxas Boulevard 
• Avail of a new gym’s free trial
• Volunteer walking the dogs at Laguna Pitbulls
• Join the free zumba class at 6AM on Sunday at Filinvest, Alabang
• General cleaning of the house and garage
• Jog or brisk walk for 30 minutes at the Ayala Triangle park
• Go on a wandering walk. Start anywhere.
• Ride the bicycle at Nuvali
• Go for a swim at the condominium pool
• Manila Bay dinner cruise
• Hike Mt. Talamitam
• Cleanup the closet
• Stroll along Fort Santiago, Intramuros
• Roadtrip to Liliw, Laguna (underground cemetery)
• Go to the National Museum
• Join a hiphop class
• Go to a waterfalls at Luisiana, Laguna
• Attend a free art class or seminar

Some of the things we have done already, and most of the time the list gets longer. Recently I have segregated the activities by color so we can budget accordingly: activities that we can do indoors for free; indoors for a fee; outdoors for free; outdoors for a fee.

It’s fun brainstorming these date ideas. In the process, I realize, that it does not matter what or where, how much or how long the activities are – what’s important is that D and I make the time to do them together, and make happy memories along the way, every day.