5 ways to keep the spark alive

In some aspects I've been married for a long time, and in another (perhaps truer) aspect 

I'm still a newbie when it comes to marriage; however, here are a few of 

the things that I've found to help keep our marriage fresh. 

1. Spend time alone. It's fun to get together with family and friends, but spending time alone can be the best thing for a relationship. It doesn't matter if you spend time watching TV, going out on a date or just laying bed talking before you fall asleep. Just make sure that you get that time together. 

2. Take time to talk. I get a wee bit angry when I don't get time to tell my husband all about my day. I think that time to just tell him what upset me or the joke a coworker told me, is incredibly important because my husband is my best friend and I tell my best friend everything. I also think just sharing the small details of your day is a great way to open the lines of communication. 

3. Surprise each other. No one gets upset when their spouse or significant other surprises them with a small gift (or a big gift for that matter), or a night out. My favorite kinds of surprises are when Jason cleans the house up for me. It's so nice when he does something like that and helps lessen my load.

4. Play. Life gets intense.; like crazy intense. It's so important that we remember that we married our spouse because we had so much fun together. When life gets rough find a way to have fun and play. Play a card game, go outside and kick a soccer ball around, throw a frisbee, play a game on the iPad together. Have fun, laugh and  remember how much you love playing with your spouse.

5. Find common hobbies. When my husband and I got married we had a few things that we enjoyed doing together, but as we've explored each other's hobbies we've found more and more things that we can do together. We love watching the UFC together (don't judge!). We each have a favorite fighter and we spend time at least once a month watching the fights together. I'v also introduced my hubby to blogging and now he come to me for advice and I can help him learn to love what I love. It's much more fun now that he understands how exciting it is to get a new follower or for get so many page views a day.