The best date I ever went on.

I have a friend who has a hilarious blog, Dopes I've Dated, where she tells stories of all the terrible dates she's been on. Its awesome, because I have quite a few stories like that too. But I'm going the opposite direction tonight.

This is the story of the most fun I ever had on a date. As you might guess, I went on this date with my now hubby, Brandon. We probably got married because this date was so awesome. It was the beginning to our love.

Brandon and I met a few days after he got home from his mission in Oct. 2007. This was actually our first official date. We had hung out several times before this night, and were actually already an item by this point, but we had never been on a meet-your-parents, pick-you-up-at-7, buy-you-dinner type of date.

It was close to Halloween, so Brandon invited me to go with him to the Haunted Castle of Muskogee (oh yeah, you wish you lived on Oklahoma now), for their yearly halloween festival. The Castle of Muskogee is basically a huge castle/medieval village in the town of Muskogee. Hence the name.

Here you go:

They have a huge renaissance fair there every year, and sell millions of fireworks at 4th of July. But at Halloween, there is a haunted house/pumpkin patch/hayride/petting zoo/anything else halloweeny they could think of.

Brandon picked me up and met some of my family for the first time. My older sisters happened to be visiting and I think all their kids were running around like banshees; my mom made small talk, and my dad jokingly asked Brandon why he would want to take me out and then got in trouble for it. We then headed out.

We drove Brandon's little truck, and held hands on the way. Muskogee is a good 45 minute drive from my parent's house, so we had plenty of time to talk and flirt to our heart's content. We talked about his mission and our families, I remember telling Brandon about my past speeding tickets and he told me about the truck he drove in high school. I remember feeling so at ease, even though we had not been dating long. Being with him was easy and comfortable, right from the beginning.

We got to the Castle and hiked about a mile from the truck to the entrance (friday nights are busy at the Castle) and headed inside. The Castle is pretty big, and they want to keep it really family friendly, so there are lots of different attractions, ranging in scariness. There's the Pumpkin Kingdom pumpkin patch and Halloween Land trick or treating for kids, and then there's the Haunted Hayride for pre-teen girls and other medium scare lovers, and then there's the Domus Horrificus, the scariest attraction they have. It's a walk-through haunted house full of creepers from horror films. Terrifying, the sign said. (The website even has the name written in bright red drippy blood font.) So we decided to take our chances and get good and scared.

We waited in line for a good 20 minutes, and expectations were high. We could hear the sound of chainsaws and people screaming inside, and everyone who walked out at the end were clutching each other's arms in giggly fear. We finally entered the house and were immediately disappointed. There was a 16 year old with zits and a squeaky voice dressed up as a dead guy, complete with red-colored corn syrup on his shirt. Really? This is supposed to make me pee my pants in terror? Every person who jumped out at us was some high-schooler in bad makeup saying scripted lines from movies. We laughed quite a bit.

We left the haunted house clutching each other's arms, not in fear, but to hold each other up from laughing too hard. It was so fun. We then went on a walk around the Castle, just holding hands and talking. I remember thinking that it was nice just to talk, and Brandon was so cute. I kept getting butterflies in my tummy when he would hold my hand and when he gave me his jacket because I got cold.

We left the Castle and drove back to Broken Arrow, where Brandon got hungry. So we stopped at Braum's and he ordered a Jalapeno Jack Cheeseburger; I got a shake. This was all that Brandon had planned for our date, but we didn't want to go home yet. So we drove down the street to my elementary school, and we played on the playground for a while. It was so fun, just the two of us, seeing who could jump the farthest from the swings (I won).

It was starting to get late, so Brandon took me home. My sisters and mom were still awake and we giggled like 13 year olds for at least an hour as I told them about my night.

It wasn't an expensive date, and the haunted house was terrible. But I had a blast, because it was the most original date I'd ever been on. Dinner and a movie gets old after a while. Plus, Brandon was smart and funny and really attractive, and had spent the night getting to know me. I could tell that he was really interested in what I was saying, and not just going out with me because I was cute. He was the epitome of a gentleman.

4 years later and I still remember our first real date with a smile, I think I started really falling in love with Brandon that night.