Does thinking up creative ideas for date nights ever seem a little bit daunting to you? Sometimes it’s hard to come up with new ideas for those date nights and it always seems like we get into the same ole’ rut of dates.  For Phillip and I, ever since we’ve gotten married, we haven’t stopped dating each other.  We’ll have those nights where we go out just to try something new & exciting!  We’re homebodies most of the time (like 95% of the time…don’t judge, we LOVE our house!) but when we DO go out on a newlywed date night, we make sure we make it fun and adventurous!

When we first started dating, I had given Phillip a “Date Jar” which was how we decided what we would do when we would go out.  Now, I’ve “re-vamped” our Date Jar to fit our moods and especially our budget (this newlywed budget is TIGHT y’all!)  I simply put the Date Jar together with colored popsicle sticks, a black Sharpie, and a cute mason jar.  We have this jar displayed on one of our bookcase shelves and it’s such a sweet addition to our home decor.

Our “Married Date Jar” looks a little like this:

• Blue Sticks- Date nights that we can do at home…and we have A LOT of these! Dates at home would include ideas like cooking a meal together, watching a movie we already own & popping popcorn, playing a board game (which I HIGHLY suggest registering for board game! We did & I’m glad we did! We love Jenga!) or just watching something on Netflix. Blue Dates are always the cheapest or involve spending NO money, so it’s been nice to have different dates that don’t make us have to spend lots or travel too far from home. Other at home date ideas include: Playing our “vintage” N-64 MarioKart game, play our favorite dice game called Farkle, stargaze in the backyard or in Phillip’s truck out in the middle of nowhere, walk around the neighborhood if it’s nice outside, create your own homemade pizza night, and movie-marathon weekends where we watch the ENTIRE series of movies like my personal favorite, Harry Potter!
• Green Sticks- These are the dates where we want to get out of the house, but we ALSO don’t want to spend lots of money.  Some of the most simple things can be turned into dates as long as we’re together and having fun! Green Dates include: walking the aisles at Lowe’s or Home Depot just to look and get inspiration for upcoming home projects (we do this quite a bit!), breeze through Costco for the free samples and people watching, walk through a museum or antique shop, go to happy hour at Sonic and order each other a slushy, geocaching with GPS, go to a coffee shop and relax or play cards, visit a model home (preferably in a really nice neighborhood!), ride the light rail into downtown Charlotte, watch a local high school football game, go hiking, visit garage sales, go to the $5 movies, free concerts in the park, play tennis at the park, go play arcade games, visit the local Petsmart to look at the kitties up for adoption, and go to the airport to see the planes land and take off.  
• Purple Sticks- Purple sticks are the dates that will require a little bit more out of our wallets.  We don’t do these quite as often, but they’re always fun and worth it when we do! We will usually grab lunch or dinner afterwards!  Purple dates include: seeing a concert or live stand-up comedy, going go-karting, renting paddle boards on Lake Wylie (this is what we did on our second date!), explore NoDa or go on a brewery tour, visit a vineyard and have a wine tasting, play laser-tag, go to The Melting Pot for some cheese fondue, go to the county fair, ice skating, play paintball, practice shooting at the gun range, play mini-golf, take a cooking class, and visit the Whitewater Center.  
• Red Sticks- These dates aren’t really dates at all…more like our little weekend adventures.  We haven’t had much time to do these mini-adventures yet, but we’re planning on it! Although these adventures aren’t too crazy out of our budget, we don’t want to go on these adventures unless we can afford it.  Some of these adventures include: going skiing, a day at Biltmore and Asheville, driving up and down the Blue Ridge Parkway, driving to the OBX, taking a train ride to Raleigh, going to Atlanta, traveling to Charleston, and heading to Nashville. 
• Orange Sticks– These are our miscellaneous dates.  These dates range in all sorts of prices and locations.  Some of these dates include: factory tours, volunteering date, Checkers hockey game, Panthers football game, taking a road trip, painting pottery, camping out in our backyard or somewhere else, enjoying a progressive dinner at 3 different restaurants, renting a tandem bike and taking it for a spin, go to the Drive-In movies, visit the flea market, go to the drag strip, go test drive a car, volunteer at the animal shelter, and take a picnic to the park.  

I so hope this can give you inspiration to create your own Date Jar and help keep the spark and the love for dating alive throughout your marriage! We were given a TON of advice when we were getting married, and one thing that I loved receiving was the advice to never stop dating one another.  I love that we take time out of our everyday routine to make sure we love and nurture our relationship and to make sure that we have fun!!

Happy Monday loves! XO! -Emma Loo