Review the Transcript
If your idea of date night is whispering “ice cream and Netflix?” after the kids are asleep, this episode is for you. I sat down with Camille Whiting of Friday We’re in Love, one of my long-time internet inspirations, to talk about how to keep connection, fun, and even spontaneity alive in a long-term relationship—especially when kids, jobs, and logistics are in full chaos mode.
Camille and her husband Jacob have committed to a weekly date night for over 14 years, and she’s sharing the mindset, systems, and flexible-but-firm strategies that make it sustainable (and joyful!).
What’s their secret? Systems. Calendars. Commitment. And an unshakeable belief that love gets better when you plan for it.
Why Weekly Date Night Still Matters
When Camille and Jacob first talked about marriage, they agreed: they didn’t want to become ships passing in the night. They’d seen too many couples slide into business-partner mode, especially after kids, and lose the spark that brought them together in the first place.
So they took advice from a beloved couple in their community—an older pair who still lit up when they saw each other across the room. Their advice? “Go on a date night every single week, no matter what.”
That principle has carried them through 14 years of marriage, including seasons of chaos, tight budgets, and even the baby years with no nearby family help.
The Four-Part Date Night System That Works With Kids
Camille and Jacob use a rotating four-part date system that adapts to real life:
1. Intentional At-Home Date
One night a month, they plan a creative, focused evening at home—think backyard movies, cooking together, or a themed game night.
2. Splurge Night Out
Once a month, they hire a babysitter and go out for a full night on the town. This could mean dinner, a show, or something as simple as a quiet dinner with uninterrupted conversation.
3. Kid Swap
During leaner seasons, they swapped childcare with another couple—one week they watched the kids, the next week it was their turn for a free night out. Genius.
4. Family Date
Even outings with their kids can be intentional and joy-filled. They turn everyday adventures—like a trip to a museum or picnic at the park—into moments of connection.
This framework means every week includes one intentional touchpoint, without requiring endless budget or babysitter availability.
Shared Calendars > Surprise Bouquets
One of the most surprising takeaways? Camille’s belief that scheduling is romantic.
She and Jacob live by their shared Google Calendars, color-coded and regularly reviewed. They plan not just what the date is, but when it’s happening—before other obligations fill the space. This removes the “maybe this weekend” ambiguity and replaces it with actual quality time.
They also use calendar visibility to balance energy. A Friday night after a big work presentation might call for a cozy movie, not a dance party. And that’s okay—because the rhythm is regular, not reliant on one grand gesture.
Balancing Marriage, Work, and Parenting
Camille gets real about logistics. They budget for childcare, look for novelty to keep things fun, and even grocery shop together when that’s all the night allows.
They’ve learned that even failed plans (hello, surprise-closed mini golf course) can become memorable when approached with flexibility. And during particularly intense seasons—like the end-of-school chaos—they temporarily shift to more family-focused weekends, knowing they’ll pick up the slack the next month.
Through it all, they never lose sight of the goal: a marriage that grows, even in the midst of real life.
Connect with Camille:
Julie: Welcome back to the System For Everything podcast. If your current system for date night involves whispering, let’s Uber and Ice cream after the kids go to bed. This one’s for you. I’m Julie Freed, and this is the system for everything, the podcast where we break down the systems that help you run your business, your life, and occasionally your love life without losing your mind.
Today’s episode is for anyone who has ever looked at their partner across a sea of sippy cups and. Laundry and thought we should probably talk about something other than daycare logistics. I am joined today by Camille Whiting a Friday. We’re in love. I have followed her for probably over a decade now. I am so excited.
She has an absolute bucket list guest for me. I’m so excited she’s here. She shares incredible ideas and honest conversations around dating your. Spouse, and we’re gonna get into how she and her husband make time for a connection, what dating looks like in real life with kids, and how you can build your own version of a sustainable joy-filled marriage system.
But before we get into the logistics of love, let’s run a quick system reboot. Camille, what is your go-to outfit when you want to feel like the best version of yourself?
Camille: I love the color red. I’m wearing it right now. I just feel like anything red, I’m like, I’m good. I feel great. This is me. This is my personality.
So I think leaning into your color for whatever the occasion is, always a good idea.
Julie: I love that. What is a tiny thing that when it is completed in your house feels like you have won the lottery?
Camille: Laundry. Laundry is the one that I’m like, I mean, I know I look at my children then and I’m like, you’re still wearing clothes?
I’m gonna have to wash again in a few hours. But when we get like mountains of laundry and everyone’s is done and put away, I am like. I’m amazing. Look at what I’ve done until tomorrow when it all needs to start over again.
Julie: And I know that your family loves Disney, so I have to ask, which ride are you willing to wait in the longest line for, and which are you walking past no matter what?
Camille: Okay. We’re Disneyland people. So Guardians of the Galaxy is the one that we all love and we will wait for, for and go on over and over again. If we’re at Disneyland, it’s Rise of the Resistance. So those are always the two longest rides, and I think it’s. For good reason. They’re both amazing and they’re both worth the wait.
Uh, what will we walk past Nemo? We don’t do nemo. It makes us all a little bit. Motion sick. And our kids were even last year, were like, what’s that ride? How have you never taken us on it? And we went on it and my, I think it was eight at the time, my 8-year-old turned to me and was like, I can see why we don’t do that one.
We’re good to never do it again. So,
Julie: all right everyone, you have met the personality. Now meet the powerhouse. Here is my conversation with Camille on the system for balancing kids and connections. So let’s start. At the beginning, you and your husband committed to dating each other, continuing to date after you got married.
What kind of sparked that decision? Was it something you always envisioned for your marriage or did it come from a moment of something has to change? I.
Camille: So I have a crazy made for TV background story. I had previously been married and my first husband, I thought everything was fine, but I found out he was kind of living a double life.
He cheated. He was very abusive and I was like, I just don’t believe in happy marriages after that. It’s just interesting when you have one bad experience, how hard it is to overcome it. So I kind of viewed life as. I never thought I’d be divorced. I never thought I would go through that. I was only 25 when I got divorced and I was like, you know what?
I’m just gonna do round two of life. I am gonna go back to school. I’m gonna get an MBA, I am gonna make a lot of money. I’m gonna buy a lot of great shoes and I’m just not gonna worry about love or marriage. I just, I don’t know, I was really skeptical. Like my parents have been happily married for a lot of years, but I really, truly thought they were some anomaly exception and that happy marriages weren’t now there.
And even when I met Jacob, who was like. Amazing. I have described him as like male, mother, Theresa. He is just this loving, giving, serving. Like, everyone’s like, man, your husband’s awesome. I’m like, I know, right? So I couldn’t not date him. When he showed up, I was like, man, he’s so great. And my wife was just shifting again, being like, I think I believe in marriage again, all of a sudden and love.
So he kind of convinced me, but I was still pretty skeptical. I have to tell you, we just celebrated 14 year anniversary. I am less skeptical. I see a lot of happy couples wherever I go. As much as we talk about the statistic that like 50% divorce, 50% are still making it and a lot are very happy and it’s very heartwarming and fulfilling to be like there are couples that even if they’ve been through rough patches, like they really are it for each other and it gives me so much hope and breath and life into it.
Julie: I, I love that. ’cause I feel the exact same way about my spouse. And I think a lot of people, when they think about 50 50 statistic, they think, well the 50 that still are are just surviving. And it’s like, no, no. The 50 that are still married are still married ’cause they really want to be and they are thriving and they’re in love.
Yep.
Camille: That doesn’t mean if you’re not having, like, there aren’t some bad patches or moments that you’re like, oh boy. I think, I think a lot of couples go through that, but I really do think there are so many that are like, this is my best friend, this is my ride or die. This is somebody I’m still attracted to.
Even as we age and get, you know, things change, like it’s amazing to find that kind of relationship and to be like, what do I gotta do to hang onto this? So I was like, I’m not even touching marriage again, unless I can have that, I’m not willing to settle for, okay. I wanna be really happy. Good for you. And so when we even started talking about getting married, I was like, I, he, he just kind of like cornered me and was like, do you believe in it and are you committed to it?
And I finally was like, I gimme a day or two to really think about this. I did some soul searching. I was like, I think I am. I just don’t wanna become business partners. I was like, my perception at that time was so many people get married, they seem really happy for about three years, and then they start to have kids, or just careers get more advanced and harder, more complex, and they seem to become these logistic business partners of just like ships in the night doing things.
They don’t care. They fall outta love. They maybe raise kids and then when their kids leave, they’re like, huh. And they make all the awful jokes, stereotypical jokes of like, you know, Hey, I guess we have to figure out how to be married together. Like, I don’t. I was like, I will not have that. And my husband’s like, yeah, I absolutely don’t want that either.
And so we started kind of talking to couples that we loved and respected, and we had this. Clergy leader. He was a bishop in our church and his wife were in their seventies, and they acted like little newlywed teenagers. I mean, not like they were like making out in the hallway or anything. They were still very mature, but they were just always so cute and sweet the way they talked to each other, the way they’d light up when one would enter the room.
They offered to give us like premarital counseling classes and we were like. We will take that wholeheartedly. Yeah. And one of the classes was on Keeping Love Alive. So they all had different themes. One was like, he was like a lawyer by trade. So one was very like, you need to have a will and you need to set up your life and you need to like monetarily.
Like it was a very responsible one that this one was so fun and it was all about keeping love alive. And they were so cute. They were like, you need to go on a date night every week, no matter what. Now as we’re giving this very like practical, like, don’t go into debt, don’t, you know, like live within your means.
Budgeting’s a big part of marriage. They were like, go on a date no matter what. Like if you can’t afford to figure it out, like go on a date. And I was like, that’s kind of unconventional knowledge. But I was like, this is kind of an unconventional, exceptional couple. And they were so cute. They had printed a little Microsoft Word calendar and like handed to us.
They’re like, we’re gonna leave for 20 minutes. And you guys talk about dates they left. And we both busted up laughing, right? Like we’re this. We’re dating a lot at this point, like we’re fun couple going out. I don’t know that I was like, this is so darling. But they warned us that a couple things would get in the way of marriage that you wouldn’t expect.
And they said one will be like religious commitments maybe. Mm-hmm. Like sometimes people use that as an excuse to be like, well, you should, you should be doing this and not. Go on those tickets you bought to go to some play. Um, they told us family would get in the way. Not just having kids, but your extended family will have expectations of you.
Work would get in the way that we would be really tired some days. Right. Or we would we’ll find seasons where you can just work a lot. And we were kind of like, okay, we’ll see. Not even kidding. Once we were like officially engaged in the thick of wedding planning, we were like. All these things, all these things are like preventing our quality time together.
And we’re not even married yet. Yeah. We kind of really did sit down and be like, we gotta get that calendar out. Uh, we’re digital people. So we got out a digital calendar and we were like, we have to prioritize things and it doesn’t matter what comes up. Yes. You feel silly sometimes when they’re like, Hey, your nephew has this huge recital that he, you know, I mean the world, if you came to him and you’re like.
We have tickets to a play. Sorry. Like, you know, sometimes you feel weird, but also we learned really quickly to be like, we have to protect this. We’re both from huge families. We’re both very religious and committed and serve a lot in our church. We have two very busy boys and we still have to be like, what do we do?
What do we do to make this happen? So anyway, we committed that we were gonna go on a date every week no matter what, and we’re like, how do we even stay accountable to this? And back then blogging was less of like a job. It was really a hobby. But I was like, this. These blogs like came out recently. What if we get a blog, we take a selfie of what we’re doing and we just publish it.
We didn’t really tell anyone about it. Pinterest came out right then. Somehow someone pinned us and we went viral and it was really amazing. I think that’s how I
Julie: originally found you, I think, was Pinterest. I, I feel like it might’ve been from the year of dates thing. Yes. Okay. I, I think it might’ve been from that,
Camille: and I think that’s how a lot of people found us.
We had like two things go super eye roll and one was a gift I gave my husband our first year married, where I gave him 12 dates. One for every month of the year, a year dates. I have a friend that actually invented it, Shannon Brown, which I gave, then gave to my husband our first year of marriage. Oh. And it’s like awesome, right?
Yeah. Like my husband every year is like, there’s nothing else I want more than that. Like that was the perfect gift. So we still give a lot of dates every Christmas, if not a year. I still usually give dates and he usually gives me some too. But we just decided to start sharing, and it was amazing to me that I feel like there was this need, A lot of couples wanted to talk about dating, and I feel like the need never ends.
You go through different seasons in time. When you’re newlyweds, you’re like, let’s do all the exciting, fun things together and make a foundation. When you have kids, it changes. As you get older, it changes, but. I have found every couple, every phase of life, this is something we wanna talk about and people wanna have fun together, they wanna be together, they wanna have that quality marriage.
Yeah. And so it’s been awesome to do something that was just a little hobby for us, turn into a job for me and like a project that we’re committed to for life. So yes, we started at like right before we got married, but it’s been something that we’ve been doing for over 14 years now. And I am like. Even more of an advocate for it.
The longer we go, the more we’re like, you know, one of the reasons we’ve been so happy and had the marriage we want to this point is because we’ve prioritized date night and quality time together.
Julie: Ugh. Okay. I love that so much. So you, you are set. You are committed to dating your spouse. What do those then logistics look like?
I mean, what does it actually look like when life is full of kids and work and chaos? And I know your, your husband travels for his work tons.
Camille: Yes. Um, so let me paint a picture of what my life is like. ’cause I think a lot of people, it, it was easier when we were both like double income, no kids good salaries.
Sure, yeah. Deal a concert on the weekend, something. It’s hard right now. Yeah. We have two boys that play sports pretty much year round, and they’re getting older and we’re now starting to give up our Fridays. We’re Friday. We’re in love, and I feel like this sham because we’re now Saturday because Friday is often like sports for our kids.
Well, there’s no song about that. I know, right? No one wrote a song. The Cure, we’re not switching. I know, right? My husband does travel for work. He’s a consultant, so he is gone a little less than he was at some years of our life, but he is still gone like several nights here and there. And he is also in like a clergy leadership position that’s volunteer.
So he works full time, he travels, he is busy, and then he usually gives up. About six hours on Sunday and then a couple nights a week, about two nights a week, just to help people in our community and church people and, and it’s something we believe in, we’re committed to, but we’ve had to get even more creative about like, where is there even a night or a window or a pocket of time to be together?
So for everyone feeling like man work is just insane and busy. Kids are so hard. Like I’m here to tell you that we’re in that season with you. Um, and when I started the blog, a lot of people were in this season and I was like, we’ll get there, we’ll be there. Um, I know we didn’t, we didn’t watch very many movies our first few years married.
And I, I remember getting critiqued for that. People being like, why don’t you do movie night? Do you think it’s a bad date? I was like, I think it’s a great date. I just know there’s gonna be a season of life that we’re gonna be putting kids to bed and movies will be more of our life. And now we’re in that season, but that’s not our only date.
Definitely. So we are always, always going through. So systems are. Totally crucial for us. We do a lot of things. We’re both project managers by profession, and so we live off of calendaring and scheduling and sending each other Google invites and things, or being like, Hey, I think I’m gonna buy tickets to this.
Will you look and see? Will you double check? Or, it looks like all our calendars are open. Is there anything I don’t know about that we wanna bring up? So we live by that. We live by looking at the calendar regularly and double checking and communicating with each other. I wish we were a little more romantic surprise.
Sometimes it’s like, I do have a surprise. Can you go this night to something I’m gonna surprise you with? But we are in a phase that we are more of like proactively communicating, like, can you do this? Is this feasible?
Julie: And I love that because I think a lot of people think, you know, oh, when you have to schedule it, it’s not romantic.
It’s not spontaneous. Like I don’t wanna. Do it. Like I just want these big, you know, nineties romcom like gestures. Yes. And it’s like. Well, that’s not what day-to-day real love is about. Like there is nobody, I would rather like sit and rewatch a TV show with like while talking through it than my husband.
No, absolutely. And yeah, and so I think that scheduling is such a good system and it doesn’t have to be sort of this bad connotation that sometimes people put on it. I think.
Camille: Totally. And I know we’re talking dates and I am a very pg like blog Instagram account, like I know a lot of children watch with mm-hmm.
Parents. So I keep it very pg on per purpose. So we don’t do a lot of like intimacy talk, but I’ve even been given that advice, like schedule intimate times. Yeah. We think that like there’s nothing wrong with saying this is when it happens. Nothing wrong with it, let’s make it happen. Like I think those sometimes save people in their busiest times of life.
So I, I actually go on the soapbox. I do almost. The same real TikTok, whatever, every Valentine’s Day where I talk about how you need to communicate what you want. There’s nothing wrong with saying, I want a $200 bouquet of flowers. If that’s in your budget, there’s nothing wrong with that saying, I’m a gift person.
I need a big gesture. There’s nothing wrong with being like. Please don’t spend very much money. Like I, I’m one of those, I’m like, one flower does for me. What a huge, expensive bouquet does. Like one little, oh, trader Joe’s
Julie: carnations every day. Totally.
Camille: I’m like, get me a grocery store cheapo. Like, I’m happy with the gesture, but I would never shame someone that’s like, I need a big gesture.
Like you talk about that. No. Some people are like, I need to go out. I need a big deal. Some people are like us. We spend Valentine’s Day with our kids and then we do something romantic. Mm-hmm. Like the next weekend when it’s not so crowded, like. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with any of it. That’s the best, but every relationship’s different.
But it’s kind of like that. Just talk about your expectations and keep the romance is like staying within your budget and meeting each other’s expectations. That communication is what’s gonna keep you happy and keep it feeling fun, even if it’s like less surprised, less romantic, like I think romance is in the scheduling a lot of the time, especially in the busiest seasons of your life.
Julie: I love that. Okay, so what kind of role then, does childcare play in all of this? Like are there, I know you both come from big families and I’m not sure if both of your families are in Arizona, but are there any tips for couples who, I mean, may not have any babysitting help? Okay.
Camille: I totally understand that, and I think I’m, I’m like proud millennial here, but, and I know a lot of like Gen Z are also having kids, and I think that the stereotype of you only date if you live by a grandparent who is willing to watch your kids every weekend is one that’s like I.
A lot of people are like, well, we don’t have that, so we can’t. So we do live about eight minutes from my parents. I have to tell you that they did not babysit until about a year and a half ago, and now we’re at the moment that we’re recording this. My kids are six and nine, so we went through the baby years.
Like not really having it. And it’s not that they were bad or not willing, they just, they were still working. Um, I do have a big family. I have other siblings that book things and it’s a lot to ask of
Julie: people and it’s a lot, it’s a big expectation to put on. Well, just ’cause they’re there. It’s like they’re not default.
That’s not.
Camille: My parents are retired now. My kids are a little older and easier to like drop off and pick up a little later and stuff like we take them to their house and that works for my parents. The baby years, that would’ve been really hard. We needed someone to come to our house and put them to sleep in their crib and you know, so.
A couple things. We set aside a budget. We were like, this is still so important to us that we will go without a lot of things. We don’t drive super fancy cars. We drive old used cars. We bought a smaller house than we could like, than was in our budget. Um, we made a few very conscientious lifestyle decision choices so that we could still afford.
To have regular dates. And I know some people might be like, well, good for you. I’m still stuck in this crazy mortgage. And you know, like I, I understand that there’s a lot of things that make it really, really hard. But for us, looking at our line item budget and being like, we’re pretty frugal about a lot of things we do during the week.
The things I share on the blog and Instagram look like, we’re always at Disneyland and we’re always like out on dates and we’re always out having fun. But our day-to-day life is like a lot of, we cook frugal dinners, we pack lunches, like we do a lot of things and we inflate our budget. That’s just gonna be different for everyone.
So I, I am very sensitive. I understand the budgeting piece of it, even though I’ve been really fortunate that we have been able to afford a babysitter. One thing we did affording it was we got a teenager in our neighborhood that basically wanted a job and we, for a few years had like a pact with her that we were like.
Every Friday from five to 10, you are booked. Like, we will pay you this set amount. We will pick you up then. Like this is a standing date for us and this is a standing date for you. And that made it really easy. It took a lot of the mental load off of everyone, and she loved it. She was like, oh, I have a job, and I’m like, 15.
It would’ve been hard for me to get a job anyway. Right? Yeah. Like very. Responsible. Very great. She’s been with us for a lot of years. We love her. But we’ve gone through a few babysitters like that and we’ve just found someone that we trust and love and then we have learned to have backups because now she’s getting older and she’s, she’s like, well, I have prom that night.
And we’re like, girl, you go to prom, like we’ll get someone else. Right. So we’ve, we have a couple in the mix, like at all times. That was one thing that helped our systems big time, that even if there wasn’t something fun to do that night, it was like, well, we have Friday off. Do you wanna like go for a walk?
Do you like we’ve literally gone grocery shopping together before for a date, being like, we just have tonight. Why not? I mean, we made it fun. We were like, let’s look at some Christmas and birthday gifts and let’s do some things. But just having a standing like this is our sacred time without children freed us up big time.
Julie: So I love that because I love running errands with my husband. Like I know that that sounds silly and like boring and that’s not like, you know, oh a date, but like to me it totally is. And I always say like, we are big bachelor, like bachelor ed people. And I’m always like, yeah, of course these people are quote unquote in love.
They just took a helicopter ride together. Like, I wanna see them put an IKEA table together. Yeah. Like that’s, that’s the challenge. That’s, you see if you fall in love with that person when you’re grocery shopping with them and someone whips out coupons like you see Yes. Yes, that’s the TV show. Are they still your
Camille: person now?
Be be sure. Are you sure? Yeah. But yeah, it’s true. So that, that is one system that worked for us for a lot of years. We had a season of life where like budget was a little bit tighter. I wasn’t quite doing this for a job yet. We had a system that I love sharing ’cause it worked great. So we did four nights a week and this is what we did when we had little kids One night a week.
We put the kids to bed a little bit early and we planned an intentional date night at home. We like cooked something together. We had a special themed movie we did like a car date. I have a blog post about this, about car dates. You can just go sit in your driveway and keep the baby monitor and you feel like you left, but you’re right there.
Oh my God. I love that. We would do something like that where we would just be like, we’re home and that’s it. Right? Kids are in bed. I will candidly tell you, I think that’s great for a lot of people. A lot of people make at-home dates work so well for them. It’s not my jam. I am like, we need to go do things.
Even if it is like we drove or we walked around the block or something, but sometimes some seasons of life, that’s something you need to do. So we got really creative trying to do that. Oh man. The pandemic was one of those two where we were like. We’re home, there’s nothing to do. So we had to get creative.
We had to put kids to bed and find things. So I have a lot of blog posts about this too, about at home date ideas, stay at home date ideas, like I think I have four different lists about different season quarantine date ideas I think is still up there even. There’s just like a ton of things you can do at home.
They don’t always fulfill me, but I could do ’em once a month and still feel like I got a date in. So that was like one week. One week we splurged like we were like, we are paying a babysitter. We are going out on the town. We’re doing something exciting. Like they were expensive date nights to pay a babysitter and pay the bills.
So we did the like frugal at home and then we would do a like go all out one. We had one year of life where we had some neighbors that had kids close to our kids’ age and they had no one, they could not afford a babysitter, anything. And we would kids swap. So we would do Saturdays from like four to seven.
One of us would feed all of the. The chaos kids. So you were like the host for all the kids one week and then the next week you were the one that got to go out on a date. So we did that. So a kid swap can be a great thing for a lot of people, especially if you live close by or you’re willing to like mix up their schedule a little bit.
I know, but it’s worth it to do that. Then the last one we took him with us, we did a family date. So that can look a couple ways. Sometimes we’re like kids, like we are in a season of life where I’m looking at my oldest child and I see the tween like entering him more every day. Oh, and I see every week is a little more like.
Can I be with my friends? Can I do this? Not that he doesn’t love being with us, but I can tell that our season of him wanting to be with us on the weekends is fleeting. We have a few more years hopefully, that we get like quite a few, but it’s gonna be gone. And so at this moment of life, we’re doing quite a few more family dates.
We’re doing like two a week. But at that season of life, when they were little, it was a lot of work to take your kids and give them, and sometimes it would look like going to a park and letting them play while my husband and I would answer like getting to know you questions or something fun. Aw, I love that.
But we would do something with the kids, either all of us together, making the memory or kids having fun, adults having like adult conversation intentional. Something together. So that system worked for us for a long time when our kids were really little and it made it so we were only like really splurging one week of the month and the rest we could kind of like keep a budget in.
Good check.
Julie: That is so smart. Okay, so we’ve got the date nights, like what did the days in between look like? Are there any like tools, tricks, uh, systems, you know, you used to say on the same page, you know, I know your digital people, so are there like. What shared calendars are. Is there any special app you use?
Do you have a regular check-in times? Yeah. How does that work? Okay,
Camille: so a couple things. Uh, well, I would say there’s like three things that are big for us. One is sharing the Google Calendar for sure, and we actually make different ones. We have like a date night calendar. We have like a kid’s logistic Google calendar, and then we each have our own like work and stuff.
And so you can toggle ’em off so your calendar doesn’t look super overwhelming, but we share ’em all. So you can look at all the chaos at once, or you can be like, what was our date night plans? Where does it fit in? Or what are our kids doing? Or whatever. It keeps us all on the same page, and it also lets us see windows in our life to be like, oh.
We actually don’t have anything this weekend, so maybe we could plan a date or fit it in here. Maybe we could do something fun with the kids. So that has been a system that has helped us like find opportunities for fun. We’re always looking for opportunities for fun. It’s like our life motto, our family motto, like we know every weekend there’s gonna be something.
It’s gonna be a date, it’s gonna be a family date, like. I just think life is too short not to have a little bit of fun every single week, and you should always have something to look forward to. So sharing that calendar and being like, all right, we do have a baseball game and we’ll be at the field all Friday night and Saturday night.
We’ve, we both signed up to volunteer at some church function for the youth, but we do have Saturday morning Open and we could do something. So we, that calendar has saved us to like visually look at what’s going on and to find holes and then just to stay in sync with like, how do we support each other.
And to plan the type of dates, because being really honest. Okay, so let me give you an example. We got invited to something really cool tonight. Our Arizona Science Center does a prom and it’s so fun, like for adults that don’t come up. And we went last year and it’s such a fun date. So they invited me two weeks ago being like, do you guys wanna come?
And we realized it’s the last day of school and my husband had a huge presentation and he was like, I don’t think I have it in me to like. Put on a suit and tie and dance, like I think I will sit at a table and fall asleep. So as fun as that would be, we planned like a different chiller date this weekend because we just know, like, and I felt
Julie: that because you guys are so intentional with everything else, he’s able to comfortably be like, I don’t think I can do this one.
’cause it’s not like, what? We haven’t been on a date in a year. Yeah. Put on a suit, you know? Right. So it’s not that added pressure.
Camille: And I think as long as you’re like regular with it, right? Mm-hmm. Because if we always did this it every weekend is like, well, I’m tired. Let’s watch a show together. There’s all these studies about how you need novelty to feel like dopamine sparks and a little adrenaline rush.
And guess what? Those are the hormones that make you feel in love. So if everything feels too comfortable and relaxed, like you do lose some spark in your marriage. But I’m also in that season of life that we’re tired all the time and we can sit in a chair and fall asleep, right? Like you, you have to find that balance.
And if one of us wants to go out, I, I’m often at the phase that I’m more tired. I’m home with our kids more. Our boys are bananas. I mean, they are hyper busy, active little guys. But my husband will be one to be like. We need to go do something fun. We need to go somewhere. You know, like we, we get there. We just find that balance of like, we know every week we can’t go as hard as we did before we had kids, but we also know that if every week is like our date is gonna be buying a tub of ice cream and like watching another episode of like our Comfort TV show, it feels old and mundane and so.
It is looking at that balance. So just even being on the same page with a Google calendar or a visual calendar of some kind, I think makes all the difference that you can be like, where’s the exciting fun? Where’s new and novelty? But there is something also in comforting experiences together. There is something in being like.
Can we just watch a funny movie that we’ve watched a hundred times tonight? Yeah. And like be together and cuddle. Like you need a mix of it. So being able to kind of plan that in and be flexible with it. And note that maybe my spouse really needs more time. Uh, you know, for fun. I’ll never forget when I was pregnant with our second kid, we didn’t think we could fit in a baby moon of any kind.
And then we did have a sister-in-law like, Hey, I will watch your oldest for like five days. We have spring break. We’re not going anywhere. Like. Go, go on a trip. And my husband was like, we’d miss the little guy. I don’t think I wanna go. And she like literally grabbed and she was like, Jacob, this is for her.
She’s the one about to have the baby and you’re gonna it together and you’re gonna take a little trip for her. Okay. And I was like. Thank you. So I love that she said that to him. But I, so I do think sometimes we need that reminder that like, get it together. And I remind myself that too. Like, my husband works a stressful, hard job.
He’s gone a lot. Sometimes he is like, I need something frivolous and fun and exciting and, you know, I’m behind a desk a lot at work. I’m not chasing children like you. Like I need an active date. So sometimes I’m like, okay, get it together. But it’s, it’s just always that balance of like, I know. This week we get out of school.
It’s like December Mayhem, whatever you call the month of May. Yeah. Like it’s so busy, especially when you have kids. And so like candidly, we have not really been on a one-on-one date quite yet. This month we’ve done a lot with our kids, but we know in June. In June we’ll go on like one a lot more. We’ll make up for it.
So knowing your ebbs and flows and just not getting out of the habit of doing it, being like, Hey, this month or these couple of weeks are gonna be all about the kids because. They have to be, we have a kid event every single night, and that’s how it goes. But making sure that there’s a window of time that you’re like, and now it’s time for us and not feeling guilty about it.
Like, yes, it’s fine to take breaks from your kids and to leave them and to do fun things without them.
Julie: I love that. I could. Probably talk to you about this for like three more hours. Like I am just like, I’m obsessed. This is gonna sound so stalker fan girl, but I’m gonna say it anyway. So before, uh, ’cause my husband and I have been together for like seven and a half years now, and so.
I’ve been following you for longer than I’ve known my husband, and I can remember like looking at some of your early stuff and being like, I hope I find someone like that. Oh, I really want a marriage like Camille and Jacob, so aw. Just know you inspire people.
Camille: Okay. Well that’s about the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.
Um, so thank you. And I’ve like, I’ve remembered the second, like you even reached out being like, would you do this? I was like, oh, I know Julie Julie’s like, it’s funny how you, you kind of get these like, like parasocial relationships online and then you kind of feel like, no, my friends, like I have real conversations with them regularly or like, we comment.
That was the sweetest
Julie: thing when you were like, wait, didn’t, the last time we talked, you were like on your adoption journey. And she was like, and now you have a, and Ile.
Camille: I don’t view social media like as like this. Someone’s like, I’m broadcasting my life to you. Like it’s social, right? Yes. It’s weird. My life is weird talking to a phone when I’m creating an Instagram story, like I’m talking to a void.
So it’s fun to see real names and real people and make like. Real connections. Like I just, I believe in that and I’ve, I’ve taken that as part of like, my journey this whole time. Like I’m not, I had someone tell us once like, well maybe you should just do photo shoots about pretend dates. And I was like, why would I ever do that?
Like, I’m gonna show real dates. People don’t care if the lighting perfect or people don’t care if whatever. Like, I don’t dunno. There’s real people here. So that is like the ultimate compli, thank you. But why would you hold up the bowling ball
Julie: but not go bowling? That’s very silly.
Camille: That’s very weird. Um, and so, I don’t know, it’s, it’s been a fun thing to share these things and to give like a peek.
Like we usually take a few pictures or a video of like the first 10 minutes of a date and then we’re like, put it down and go enjoy your date. So. Oh, I love that. Thank you. It’s been, it’s been about the most rewarding thing just to make this originally our hobby and our journal and then to have so many couples like join in and share their advice and their dates and to be like, it really is like a community and I.
I like pinch myself every day that I’ve got to build that because, oh, it just makes you realize how many couples really do care. Yeah. Like they really do care. They want a happy life, they want a happy marriage. Like we’re not in this to fail. We get married to be together forever and to like, yes, make each other happy and.
I, I feel really lucky all the time that I get to talk to people that are so intentional about their relationship with their husband and wife or, you know, spouse, significant other, and their children. Like, it’s been fun to expand as we’ve had kids and to talk a lot about like the dynamics changing of when you do bring in kids and you do family dates and you balance that quality time with them, but.
Also knowing like when it’s time to pull back and be like I need, I think you just know like, you know when you need more time with your significant other and it’s time to be like, I need to leave the kids behind. Kind of like, you know, when they’re too tired or you know, when they’re getting bored or things are feeling stale.
Like there’s always that sense right, of when, when to like ebb and flow with what works.
Julie: Yeah. Okay. We are gonna wrap things up with a lightning round of date favorites. Okay. What is. Your all time favorite date?
Camille: I would say like a day. We flew to Disneyland for a party, but that feels like, so like most people are gonna be like, okay, yeah, sure.
My favorite like very realistic date was renting paddle boats over a lake at sunset and like watching the sunset and just bringing like a picnic dinner and just like paddle boating in a really fun, scenic view. It felt really romantic and very connecting to me. I’m gonna add each of these to my list.
Okay, is your, it’s a little active without being like, you’re gonna break a sweat. And yeah, it’s just a fun, fun way to mix things up. So that’s been my personal favorite.
Julie: What about your go-to easy date? Like no effort?
Camille: I think you can always, okay, so on the like, I like novelty, right? Like it helps spark the dopamine and whatever.
We often find a restaurant that we’ve just never been to before. If we’re like, we’re just gonna go out to dinner and we’re just gonna have time to like talk and be together. We’re kind of in that season of life where like kids overhear everything we say. So we have to save a lot of our conversations for date night.
And I think finding a new restaurant just to try. Get yourself out there. Or even like dessert ice cream, like just something leaving my house, trying something new and being there with my husband to talk to is like our easiest go to if, if dates like we have some disaster dates. We’ve gone to, we’ve had things like fall through altogether.
We’ve had double dates, people cancel on us and things like, it’s always easy to just be like, let’s find a new restaurant that we haven’t tried yet. Or even if there’s one you love that you’re like, there’s a new menu, there’s new, there’s something novel. Mm-hmm. But let’s eat food together. That’s, that’s all we did.
Okay. Best at Home Date. I like that. We invested a few years ago in a backyard movie set up. We got like a projector. Oh yeah. We got a blow up screen. And I feel like every time we set that up, it just feels so magical and special to me, even though we’ve done it like a hundred times. But I love backyard movie nights with a projector.
Best
Julie: totally free date.
Camille: I like to look at what our city, uh, and community is doing and find like festivals or like firework nights Yes. Or um, fairs or whatever. They do so many free things and, and I love that that’s true for small towns to like huge cities, right? Mm-hmm. There’s usually at least one or two festivals or something exciting every year that cost you nothing to go to, and I think they always make for a really great date.
All right.
Julie: Best date with
Camille: kids. I like going to museums with kids. I feel like there’s, I would’ve said like fun centers even. Once again, Disneyland is actually always the answer, but more attainable, realistic. Um, I like museums because I feel like instead of just like. Fun, dopamine fun center. You actually learn things together and you spark these conversations and you often talk about like history or we’ve talked about dinosaurs, dinosaur museum, like just really cool things that you’re sparking this like love of learning and a really cool conversation with your kids together and you can kind of let them lead out and see what they’re interested in.
I don’t think we’ve ever not had at least a little bit of fun at a museum, even the most random museums, but we’ve had some really at the weird small
Julie: museums. Right. Love that.
Camille: But there’s, there’s always something to see and something to learn. Yeah. And I, I think anything that sparks a connection, like an actual conversation together is always a win.
And for us, like museums have hit that every time.
Julie: I love that. Okay. A date that totally flopped.
Camille: Okay, once, um, this one’s probably my favorite, like, funny story. I, it was a time when we had just had our second kid and we desperately needed to leave. Like it had been a few months. We’d done a lot of stay at home dates.
I’m just getting outta the postpartum phase and I thought I planned the funnest thing. I was like, they have like this glow golf course and it’s about 40 minutes from our house. We live in Phoenix and so there’s a lot to do and there’s a lot of different areas in the valley you can go to. And I was like, okay.
It’s gonna be so fun. We’re gonna do like glow in the dark, golf in this cool arena. It’s gonna be a fun twist. That sounds fun. Like a mini golf date. The venue closed without like announcement. Like they totally let you pay, took your money. All the things they like closed. They like filed bankruptcy and like closed their doors overnight.
And we didn’t know that happened. Like I think the day before our date was scheduled and I had it all booked and we like showed up and were like. So, no, not that. Um, we had nothing and that was a night that we were like, let’s look up a restaurant. We ended up finding this really cool like restaurant bar combo with game spots and anyway, it was like really fun, but.
It caused us to be a little spontaneous. Mm-hmm. Which I think also sparks a little bit of the adrenaline dopamine, and it ended up being like a really funny night. But I will never forget being so like this is our first exciting date and like, I usually pack a big like DSLR camera with us on dates so I can vlog it and share it online.
And so I had like all my equipment ready to get, you know? Right. I’m like, this is our first one out in months. And I was like, Nope. I guess not. Like we have nothing. So that was definitely a fail of a date, but very funny. Almost immediately.
Julie: All right. And then finally a dream date that you haven’t done yet, but would love to.
Camille: A hot air balloon ride has been on my bucket list for a long time, and we have never done that.
Julie: I, I have to say, for me, I feel like that seems awkward because you have to have the guy flying it with you. Right. You know? Yeah. Nobody’s gonna just think I can control this thing and do it by myself. Right. So it’s like romantic, but also with like.
A stranger.
Camille: Right. Well, I’ve even heard it’s usually a group, like it’s usually a couple people, so you’re like there with a few couples or whatever, plus a stranger. Yeah. It feels somehow less awkward then,
Julie: does it? Yeah. Then it’s just like you, your partner and like Joe. Yes. Like, Hey Joe, welcome to. Yeah,
Camille: I agree.
I agree. I think that would be weird. Do you want some champagne? Tell me. They’re like, take down your expectations. That one’s kind of loud and it’s kind of hot. It’s like less romantic than you’d think, and I’m like, I don’t care. I still wanna do it. I still think it sounds amazing. I still wanna say I’ve been in a hot air balloon before and I never have, so it’s on my list.
I love
Julie: that. Okay, Camille, thank you so much for being here today. You have no idea how wonderful this was. Oh, thank you for having me. This is such a cool podcast. Please tell everyone where they can find you. Please tell them what’s going on in your business right now, what you wanna promote. Tell them all the things.
Camille: Okay? You can always find me at my blog Friday. We’re in love.com, and obviously there’s no apostrophe in that, so just be what we look like. We’re in love, but we’re Friday. We’re in love. Friday, we’re in love. Um. Everywhere. That’s, I’m mostly active on Instagram and TikTok. And then, um, my website is like a great place to come for those that are like, I’m here for dates.
I do a date night list that you can sign up where I send like a fun new idea every weekend to your inbox. Um, I have all the lists like you could ever want by category there. I’ve been doing this for like 13 years and writing any list, I think of anything I come up with. I just, I like to collect ideas and I was like, why am I not sharing this with others?
I’m waiting for when you write a book, I would buy it. Oh, well, thank you. Yeah, I, one day that’s like on the list one day I think maybe, but, so that’s for date nights. If you are a parent and you’re like, I wanna have more fun as a parent, or you want more systems of like, how do I keep things going with my kids?
How do I even get through summer? It’s summer, almost summer, like we’re getting outta school this week, right? At the time of recording this, um, I do a camp mom series with a bunch of freebies for moms and systems to organize, like how to keep your home in check, how to keep. Your kids in check how to get everything ready so that you do still have energy to go on a date night or wanna actually be with them on the weekends so you can join Camp Mom.
You can find all kinds of family dates on there if you’re big Disney fans. We also has have a pretty robust Disney like page on there too. We’re pass holders this year. We’ve gone a lot. Yeah. And she has all the hot Disney secret tips. I love it. I love it. I, I didn’t even know
Julie: what Rope Drop was.
Camille: I know I need, I probably need to do more like even nomenclature on Disney for people that haven’t been before.
’cause you forget that. You’re like, oh, everyone doesn’t talk this lingo. Right. Um, but I kind of talk about all those three, like family travel, family fun and dates. That’s kind of where we’re at right now with content. So any of those things that appealed to you, like come join. But I think my email list is where it’s at.
I think I put the most time and effort into that. There’s no algorithms to like take things away, but definitely come follow on Instagram, TikTok come say Hi, come tell me that you came from Julie. It’s really fun to join this community. There’s a lot of just great couples and moms that are like rooting for families and rooting for marriages there, and we like to be a wholesome, positive place on the internet.
I
Julie: love that. All right, everyone, let’s close with a system shutdown part of the show where we switch gears entirely. Although today I’m gonna stick with the theme of dating. Uh, in my early twenties, I once went over to an ex’s house thinking that we were going to rekindle something for a third time. You can see where this is real dumb.
We were supposed to watch a movie, but halfway through he disappeared into the other room to, um. Hang out, let’s say with his roommate who was, uh, let’s call her professionally flexible as a career. I eventually realized that I was not the evening’s main event. So I went to leave and discovered that his dog had stolen one of my shoes.
Uh, I literally hobbled out with one shoe, no dignity, and a renewed commitment to never backslide. And I wanna hear from you. What is the worst or weirdest date you have ever been on? Head over to Instagram at Dallas Girl Friday. Tell me everything, bonus points, especially if it involves karaoke or a costume.
Thanks for being here, guys.
