Share the Love: Don't Forget Date Night! (#giveaway for @ShorelineSights cruise tickets)

Before we left the country for a month at the end of May to bring home our daughters via international adoption, we made about two dozen lists of things to do and bring and pack.

One of the things that made the "must do" list before leaving the country was a date night. A real date, at that. Not one of those dates in disguise we sometimes like to do out of shear convenience, ease and desperation. (Going on a Target date always seems like a good date idea ... until you get there and realize it's just a glorified grocery shopping trip with less whining, less cart tipping and more time spent in store resulting in a larger haul of stuff that's alot less grocery and a lot more questionable because that's what happens when you don't have to get in and get out, people!)

So anyway, we realized we really needed a real bonafide date that included adult conversation, perhaps mental stimulation and also maybe leisurely enjoyment of food, drink and maybe the great outdoors, if we were going to get fancy about it.

When Shoreline Sightseeing invited us to take an Architecture Tour on the Chicago River, I sorta hesitated a bit to do this for date night. We'd previously been on a different company's architecture tour along the river, and it was, um, kinda boring for me. Hubby on the other hand had mostly enjoyed it because he really really likes history and information. (When we first met in Egypt, he wanted to spend some time at the Cairo Museum and after FOUR hours spent looking around was shocked when I told him I was ready to leave because look.at.all.the.history!)

So I'll be honest: the only reason I'd agreed to make this into a date night is because I really, really, really love my husband ... and we had two extra tickets, and I figured I could talk with my girlfriend during the tour while he geeked out and feasted on information.

But we didn't even have the chance to occupy ourselves! From the moment the cruise started, we definitely were engaged by the crew and our tour guide. Our tour guide Ben was born, I think, to give architecture tours. As if memorizing information and then making the history of architecture interesting isn't a great enough task, our guide did it with humor, a bit of sarcasm and poise. You guys, I literally laughed out loud several times. He made such a huge difference in our experience. I also learned things. Yup, that's right -- I learned that Art Deco is my absolute most favorite of building styles in the city.

And we got some fantastic views of the city at sunset. So that's a win, too. My compliments to the captain for pausing for a good long while to enjoy it. We'll definitely do it again if the opportunity affords itself to us!

Wanna go on a date-night cruise, too? Shoreline Sightseeing has kindly offered one reader four tickets to be used this season. Simply enter the giveaway using Rafflecopter. No funky logins required. Easy!

a Rafflecopter giveaway