Introduction: Amberly of A Prioritized Marriage, is someone I absolutely look up to when it comes to marriage! I instantly fell in love with her message and admired the educated expertise she brings to her platform. She is someone I want you to hear from, so I asked Amberly a few questions to answer for you! She gives great responses that not only demonstrate her important message of making the relationship with your spouse a priority, but she shares specific actions on how to do that.

Today is my husband’s 26th birthday! Crazy enough, it happens to also be week 26 of this project, too! I love coincidences like that. And it works out well because the joy I have found in my marriage this week, is having that feeling like we know each other pretty well for our birthdays. We’ve celebrated 5 birthdays together now, which is 10 birthdays total! Weird when you think about it in total numbers, right?

I’m almost half way through this project to live a more joyful marriage! It’s been such a good exercise for me to do each week because sometimes I have to think a little harder about the joys in life and in marriage. And that has helped me see things deeper in our relationship. There have been a few things in our marriage this week that has brought me joy! :) But one main thing that I have found joy in this week was in our ultimate cereal date night on Friday!

HAPPY FOUR YEARS! Four years ago today, I wrote my very first blog post on Freshly Married, called “The Iron,” about a lesson I learned with an iron (obviously), that taught me what it truly means to be a good wife, even though I had only been married for a few short weeks. Though we’ve been married for longer now and have had several more tough experiences than this one, this iron experience helped launch the message behind Freshly Married, which you can read more about here.

Discussing the topic of dying is kind of depressing, I know. But death is also a reality. And unfortunately, for so many couples, it becomes a reality too early on in their marriage, and so unexpectedly. You can only prepare so much in these situations, but guess what? Making a will is something that you CAN prepare for. After learning about wills and estates in a family finances class, I started realizing how important it is to have a will in place for your family’s protection, especially if you have many assets you want to leave behind for your spouse and children.

This picture from last October is one of the most fun moments with some of my family members. While the boys were taking pictures with the photographer, the girls were scheming and did a surprise silly string attack on them! It was really funny and it brings me to the joy I had this week. :) The joy I found in my marriage this week: Effortless, no pressure fun. That seems like something obvious, and yet it’s something that can be easily taken for granted.

The joy I found in my marriage this week was my husband getting a new job that he was so happy about! I’ve kind of shared it mysteriously on here because we didn’t want to say anything until we had good news, but my husband actually got laid off his job a month ago. The decision was based on saving money, not on his performance whatsoever. It was very unexpected and very inconvenient in the timing.

We have been in our house for almost 3 years, this August! It’s awesome to think back on how far we have come with putting it together, and making it feel like HOME. I recently made an accomplishment with our house that I’m quite proud of – I FINALLY finished decorating and furnishing our home! This event has made me think about the home furnishing and decorating process, what I liked that I did, and what I would do differently.

The joy I found in my marriage this week is seeing the door to parenthood open wider. There were two reasons for this joy. This has been our first full week with our new dog, Oli. And though Trevor does most of the responsibilities, we’ve both had our eyes further opened to what being a parent is like. Being a “dog parent” I guess you could say, is a great segway into being a parent for a human, haha.

Introduction How many people can say one of their close childhood friends are in a band; a SUCCESSFUL band at that?! I’m lucky enough to have her examples in my life of going after your dreams while being a wife and a parent, which is not easy to balance, as many of us know! Because of the frequent traveling between the two of them, she has learned what helps to keep their marriage fresh through the distance and gives great advice on how they have managed that.

The joy I found in my marriage this week was adding this little guy to our family :) I’ll preface the story of this joy by saying that I did not think I would ever have a dog, or any pet for that matter. I’ve specifically told people I won’t have a pet, haha. I grew up with quite a variety of pets and I guess it just never became a passion of mine.

This weekend, I was able to do something that is #1 on my bucket list after having a family: See U2 live in concert! And we made it happen! To hear them live made me feel so blessed to be there because I just love and appreciate their music so much! They put on an incredible and entertaining show for their fans! It was exhilarating, anxious, and wonderful all in one if that make sense?

My husband and I tried out different date boxes to give you an idea of what each one offers! This blog post is sharing our experiences with the “Crated With Love” date box company, giving you better insight into what their boxes are like. If you are unfamiliar with date boxes in general, read this previous blog post explaining everything about them - what they are, as well as the pros and cons.

My husband and I tried out different date boxes to give you an idea of what each one offers! This blog post is sharing our experiences with the “Date Night In” date box company, giving you better insight into what their boxes are like. If you are unfamiliar with date boxes in general, read this previous blog post explaining everything about them - what they are, as well as the pros and cons.

My husband and I tried out different date boxes to give you an idea of what each one offers! This blog post is sharing our experiences with the “Datelivery” date box company, giving you better insight into what their boxes are like. If you are unfamiliar with date boxes in general, read this previous blog post explaining everything about them - what they are, as well as the pros and cons.

My husband and I tried out different date boxes to give you an idea of what each one offers! This blog post is sharing our experiences with the “Unbox Love” date box company, giving you better insight into what their boxes are like. If you are unfamiliar with date boxes in general, read this previous blog post explaining everything about them - what they are, as well as the pros and cons.

Date boxes are planned and created date nights that are focused on creating an entertaining and connecting date for you and your spouse! If you’re unfamiliar with date boxes, I’ll give you the rundown on the basics of what they are, the pros and cons, as well as the varieties out there you can choose from! Date boxes are mostly focused on indoor dates, which are great for winter, or for spending time together after the kids are in bed so you don’t have to pay for a babysitter.

The joy I found in my marriage this week: feeling a positive difference in our lives and our relationship. It’s a good feeling when both of you notice that your interactions and overall days feel different from the past few months. I think one of the biggest things that we both appreciated and found joy in was how we focused more on “listening to understand” when we discussed specific subjects. I’ve always known this principle but sometimes you just need to be reminded, right?

We’ve all been there You’re on a much-needed date night out, away from work, home, and the kids (if you have them). Whatever the activity you’re doing, there is time for conversations to happen and somehow the conversation ends up being any or all of the following scenarios: Talking too much business stuff - the kids’ schedules, work stress, etc. Not knowing what to talk about, especially if you think you know everything about each other already Bringing up issues that start an argument I think we’ve all found ourselves in one of these situations on our date nights before.

I had a couple of joys I found in my marriage this week. I’ll just share one of them though. I found joy in our outside date night we had this week. We both took some of the day off for some time with each other and we chose to go to a food truck round-up at our nearby lake. The weather was kind of perfect with it not being too hot, not too cold but just the right amount of breeze.