Sometimes a spontaneous date night can be just the thing to make your week right. They don’t always need a ton of planning and can just be low-key and casual, but there’s something about spending an evening out of the house that helps to put even the hardest of days in the rearview mirror.

A couple of weeks ago, Meredith and I were meeting our friends Brook and Daniel for happy hour at Zapoteca, and before we knew it, the evening had become a date night away  from the couch, with drinks, pizza, and even a beach walk with Orvis.

Happy hour at Zapoteca, with habanero watermelon margaritas and appetizers, was a tasty, fantastic deal, and afterwards we were no longer in the mood to cook dinner, so Otto Pizza was a natural choice. When we finally made it back home, we belayed Orvis’s guilting stare with a walk to Fisherman’s Point at Willard Beach. As the sun set over the beach, I couldn’t help but smile at the happiness our evening had afforded us.