Date Night: Partners in Crime-Fighting
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Finding great “date night” ideas during this season of pandemic can be a little bit daunting and potentially disappointing. Even though there are restaurants that are open again, and the weather is still nice, it feels more complicated. While there could be an element of frustration to this, I also find it to be a great challenge (in a good way) to have to get more creative with our ideas for date nights!
Usually date night in our household (before kids) was a trip to the movies and splurging on popcorn and soda, or going out to eat at one of our favorite restaurants, or a round of mini-golf and a treat of ice cream. But rounding up a babysitter last-minute for an impromptu date night isn’t as easy to do during a pandemic, and it feels like there are not as many options of what is open (or how late they are open) and just sitting on the couch and watching more Netflix doesn’t feel special or intentional enough to call it a date night. So what do we do instead?
In this special Date Night series of blog posts, I want to share with you some of the best and most creative ideas that my husband and I can find for some unique date nights (on a budget!). I love spending time with my husband and would be happy to spend (almost) every hour or every day with him - but when it comes to Date Nights, I find value in being able to do something out of the ordinary and also be intentional with the type of conversation that we are engaging in and try to learn something new about each other or show value to each other in a new way. But most importantly… date night should always be fun and ideally never be stressful!
PARTNERS IN CRIME-FIGHTING
I have always been a sucker for a good murder mystery or true crime documentary or podcast. Maybe it has something to do with my Enneagram 1 and wanting to find justice, but the stories often suck me right in and I want to know “whodunnit” and why did they do it. So when my husband and I came across an ad for Unsolved Crime Files - a game where you get to solve a fictional crime using a packet of cold case materials - we just KNEW this had to be our next date night adventure!
We ordered our Unsolved Case Files packet on a Wednesday night on Amazon and it showed up on Friday - just in time for Date Night! I was so excited and could not WAIT to get our son down for bed so that we could dive right into this game!
We took our Unsolved Case Files packet, a few drinks and some popcorn, a large stack of post-it notes, sharpies, and a variety of colorful washi tape up to our attic and got ready to lay everything out on the floor and tape things up on the wall - just like true detectives.
I’m not going to give anything away about this game, but I have nothing but positive things to say about it! Eric and I started by opening everything up and laying it out on the floor. There were a few simple instructions about our objectives, but not much else beyond that, which meant that we had to sort through and evaluate all of the documents that we had in our cold case file and start reading through witness statements and suspect interviews to gather all of the facts and evidence.
We were given a first objective that we had to try and solve in order to move on to the next stage of the investigation. I think it’s brilliant how the makers of this game setup each stage of the investigation. Once you think you know the answer to the first objective, you head on over to a website and answer the question they have for that objective. If you get it right, they let you know right away and you get to move on and open the next stage of clues and new objective. If you get it wrong, they let you know that you didn’t select the correct responses and even give you an option to request a hint or two. Eric and I did use a few hints so that we weren’t at this all night or working on it the next day, but I also think that could be super fun - to leave the clues up on the wall and pour over all of the details and evidence for days like a real case, until you finally piece a few things together to get the right answers!
I was beyond impressed with the level of detail that went into the documents provided within this case file. Even the newspapers were made out of newsprint material, and the invite postcard and suspect photos were all printed on nice thick glossy paper. This is something that both Eric and I noticed and we mentioned that we wanted to be intentional not to write notes on any of the documents so that if friends or family asked to borrow it, we weren’t going to ruin anything for them! (The only thing we obviously had to alter were the Bonus Envelopes that you have to open once you hit a specific objective. Those were originally sealed, so we carefully cut across the top to make it easy to slide the materials in and out.)
Honestly, this Unsolved Case File was just the right amount of detail and mystery to feel like it wasn’t so easy that it was lame, but also just easy enough that I felt like I was able to accomplish solving the mystery mostly on our own. Both Eric and I had different moments where we noticed key clues or pieces of evidence that helped us to solve this case together! It was so fun to work together as a team and learn a few new things about each other (or really, enjoy watching our different personalities work out this case in our own unique ways!). I love how Eric is so good at seeing the big picture when I just want to narrow in on the details.
If you are looking for a unique idea for your next date night, I would highly recommend ordering one of these cases through Amazon! Since we have Amazon Prime, it showed up super quick and we didn’t have to pay shipping. We used a few other fun supplies that we already had around the house: post-it notes, colorful washi tape, some pens and sharpies, and a notepad. We made our own snacks and grabbed drinks from our fridge - but you could go one step further and order some take-out for pickup or have it delivered. I joked with Eric at one point that we just needed some late-night Chinese food and it would feel like a real detective movie!
Total Date Night Cost
Cost of Unsolved Case File: $30
Cost of snacks: $0
Cost of extra supplies: $0
Total Cost per person: $15
All in all, for only $15 per person, we had a great time working together as a team and solving a fun (fictional) murder mystery and spent less than 3 hours on this activity. Cheaper than a night at the movie theater!
What has been your most creative date night this year? Let us know if you decide to order your own Unsolved Case File and share with us what you think! How long did it take you to solve the case and did you use any hints?!
