The Best App to Use When Details Matter #30DatesIn30Days

I don’t know when it happened, but sometime in the three years since Whistler was born my relationship with Ben has changed. Perhaps it has do with a shift in our priorities, busier schedules or the fact that most weeknights we just want to crash early. Most likely, it’s all of those things together and I’m sure many parents can identify. Having kids definitely changes things and we don’t have time to “date” our spouse as often as we would like. But when we do make time, Ben and I like to make it special. We want to experience more than just dinner and a movie. Go big or go home, right?

Living in Southern California, I know there are hundreds of hidden gems waiting to be discovered but I’ll admit sometimes we get lazy. When we barely have time to squeeze in date night it’s next to impossible to find and plan something completely new. When we do try new things it’s usually through the recommendation of a friend, which is great because it takes all of the guess work out of it. Where is it? What is it? What will we love about it? It’s these questions that make me love the new Details Matter App.

The Details Matter App offers hundreds of date night ideas submitted by couples like us! (It’s currently only in San Diego and Sacramento, but expanding quickly!). We can share our own favorite great date night ideas or activities so it’s just like getting a personal recommendation from a friend.

Ben and I decided that before taking the plunge we wanted to reconnect with an extreme date and take a different kind of plunge – skydiving! What better way to get back those feelings of sweaty palms and butterflies in your stomach than jumping from an airplane thousands of feet in the air? The kind folks over at Details Matter invited us to be the final date of their #30Datesin30Days campaign and we quite literally jumped at the chance to have our extreme date courtesy of SkyDive San Diego.

I have to admit, I was so excited about our upcoming date night that I was a bit distracted during the week. I’ve jumped before with a girlfriend in Fiji, but this was something that Ben and I have always wanted to do together. Living in Los Angeles, we had quite a bit of mileage to cover in order to arrive in Jamul (near the Mexico border in San Diego) at the requested 9am meetup time. Neither of us “morning people”, when jump day was upon us, it took just about everything Ben and I had to get up and moving. But you better believe that neither one of us complained one bit!

After signing our lives away and a brief training session, we were in the air. *GULP* All too soon we were 13,000 feet in the air, harnessed to a licensed tandem instructor, about to jump out of a plane. I went first and Ben followed soon thereafter.

I was having so much fun goofing off posing for pictures and interacting with our photographer during that 60 seconds of glorious free fall, that I completely forgot to look around to see how Ben was faring. Turns out – he was doing just fine :)

At 5,000 feet the instructors deployed the parachute and then it was a 5 minute flight over my gorgeous San Diego. The jump site is really close to the Mexico border so we also had a bird’s eye view of Tijuana. Not as exiting as the free fall, but definitely a good time. My tandem partner tried a few whirls and tricks in the air and even let me “steer” for a bit.

Upon safe landing, I just couldn’t wait to give Ben a big hug. We had so much adrenaline pumping through us and both agreed that this was our first jump together, it would not be our last!

We were awarded a “First Jump Certificate” once we landed and later mailed CDs with our jump video. If you’re thinking about taking the plunge (skydiving, that is) SkyDive San Diego offers three price packages starting at a special online rate of $189, up to $298 with the inclusion of video and photography (which I highly recommend).

After the thrill of Skydiving together we really didn’t want to the date to end. It’s hard to go back to reality after that kind of adrenaline rush. It also works up quite the appetite (no, not that kind of appetite) we were hungry! But where to eat? Details Matter App had us covered there too.

We ended up having a delicious dinner at BiCE San Diego. A trendy Italian restaurant in the Gaslamp Quarter and winner of the 2012 Gold Medallion – Best Italian Fine Dining in San Diego. The menu at BiCE changes with the seasons to offer fresh ingredients and flavors but they offer everything from a twist on the traditional dishes like ravioli to truly surprising Italian dishes. A quite, uninterrupted meal spent trying new cuisine and discussing the thrilling experience of Skydiving was the perfect way to end our epic date. Everything we ate was phenomenal and they have easily jumped to my #1 favorite restaurant in San Diego.

We can’t thank Details Matter App, Skydive San Diego and BiCE Restaurant enough for probably one of the most memorable date nights we will ever have!