We all know how relationships go; you start with a first date, decide you genuinely like spending time
together, and date some more! You have so much fun that you eventually fall in love, choose to spend your lives together, get engaged, marry the man/woman of your dreams, and most likely have some kids. And then, something strange might happen…. you might wake up one day and realize {all too easily} that somehow you have stopped dating along the way!
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Why on earth would you stop doing something that was sooo much fun? So much so that you fell in love and committed your lives together. But you stopped doing the very thing that brought you together.
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After eight years together {six married} and becoming parents to our awesome little man, we have realized we stopped dating. It was actually my biggest fear for starting a family… I didn’t want to lose my husband. I loved our marriage, I loved being the center of Spencer’s attention, I loved loving him and being loved in return. Whenever we talked about having a family we said all kinds of things like “we will definitely get a baby sitter”, “every other Wednesday or Friday night will be date nights”, “we will put our little one down and cuddle to shows or movies and have us time”. All great ideas but NONE of these things have happened.
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Some parents might be good at date nights and some parents might not. I am sharing our real life struggle today because it happens, it is real and I know we aren’t the only ones who experience this. I have to admit, at seventeen months into parenthood I thought we would have figured things out a bit more than we have, but we are still struggling! Struggling to eat, sleep, keep a clean house, hang out together, see our friends… the list goes on and on. And to add a bit more challenge to the mix both Spencer and I are in the process of building our own brands/businesses, which is very exciting but also a huge time suck!
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While I obviously don’t have the answers, what I can tell you is we communicate! We are both very open with our feelings and desires. We both want to carve out time for each other, we want to find time where we can be each others main priority, we both want to start dating again! But we are also tired and very busy and we find it’s so much easier to say we will hang out later. However the truth is we don’t know if we get later, we aren’t guaranteed tomorrow. The most important thing in our lives is each other and our family. We have to plan, we have to make a conscious effort to take the “Us” time.
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We have been pretty good about our family time and strive to make weekends that special time with Kade. And, now we have chosen to make it a goal to have a minimum two date nights a month. It could be stay in or go out time but it has to be time where it is the two of us and we put our phones away, turn our brains off to all the things we have going on or to all the things we should be doing, and just be together.
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We also thought it would be nice to make some of our date nights a little special and definitely fun, so we each take turns planning them! We want to take this opportunity to try something new… a new experience, new event, new restaurant or even a new movie.
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Recently it was my turn to choose the date night and it actually worked out that the event I wanted us to enjoy was on a Wednesday night! (One of the nights we had previously claimed to be our date night/spend time together night). A relatively new restaurant called Ampersea, located right in the Inner Harbor, nestled right between Harbor East and Fells Point in the Living Classrooms building, hosted a delicious BBQ dinner followed up with a sweet summer sailing sunset cruise! The Ampersea has some of the most spectacular views across the harbor with a variety of indoor/outdoor seating options.
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The evening was beautiful! Honestly, the weather couldn’t have been more perfect so of course we sat outside! We sipped on orange and grapefruit crushes, enjoyed the bacon Brussel sprouts, crab pretzel and honey BBQ wings. After dinner we boarded the Sigsbee, a living classrooms sailboat, and cruised around the harbor. I think Spencer and I were meant to be sailors because they asked Spencer to assist in hoisting the main sail and they let me steer the boat! We had a lovely evening together and kept talking about how much we loved Ampersea and the evening in all. We can’t wait to go back and might even plan a night out with some friends and family. We are already looking forward to our next date night which is this Friday! We will be heading to The Bmore Creatives Pool Party at the new Swim Club in Canton! Technically, Friday is in August so we only got one date night in July but hey, baby steps right?!?!
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Okay, now that I have just shared all that, I hope you go squeeze your significant other and plan a date night soon!!!
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Thank you APRIL BLY PHOTOGRAPHY
for hanging out BTS and capturing our date night!
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Outfit Details
I wore a beautiful striped maxi from Amazon {link below and also in my amazon shop}. The colors in this dress are so vibrant… I love how they just pop! I almost belted the dress but last minute decided not too. But I would definitely style this maxi with a belt too! Accessories were unique but not too much, and played well with the colors. I paired with my green acrylic Cult Gaia dupe also from Amazon, jewelry from Silk & Stones Designs, sunnies from Under Armour and sandals from Lilly Pulitzer.
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SHOP THIS LOOK
