One Year Down...

...many more to go!

This weekend we celebrated our first anniversary and I'm not quite sure where the year went! Tomorrow I'll share some of my small, if not tiny, pearls of wisdom after my first year of marriage, but today, I thought I'd just share part of our day with you.

As per usual, the Illinois weather was determined to put on its pouty pants and what could've been a fun day of sun, sand and water at Lake Geneva, was instead, gloomy, damp and chilly. So we ended up staying in town and going out to a nice dinner here.

The gloom and chill did not stop us from exchanging gifts, enjoying a nice breakfast together, and of course, we enjoyed a little faux wedding cake. I even received pretty flowers on Friday evening and if you know me, you know I love getting flowers. They just make me so happy inside. And I loved that the note reminded me that a year ago, on that date, we were at our rehearsal dinner!

Whatever genius dubbed the first anniversary a "paper" celebration, thank you. Not really. Paper is HARD. And shopping for my hubs is not easy in itself. He doesn't really want for much and he isn't really a things person. Over the last year, I've learned that he's sort of a minimalist, so what do you get a minimalist? It's not easy, I tell you.

So in the theme of paper, I created a sub-theme of travel and adventure. The mister's gift was made up of a few new opportunities for adventure together:

 

 Sorry for the poor photo quality.

 

• A customizable map (entitled "Oh Darling, Let's Be Adventurers") of the places we've been and a vast opportunity for more "pins" for our new collection. We had fun adding in our pins that morning.
• Tickets to a Cubs game this summer (along with some Cubs, edible memorabilia because even minimalists like to eat).
• An email registration as official volunteers of the Iron Man Madison 2013. I was pretty proud of this one if I may say so. He's talked about wanting to volunteer at a race like this together, so I did some research and we're now the proud course marshalls together at a street corner in Madison.

And the hubs gave me an "anniversary basket" as he dubbed it, filled with:

• Candy
• Beautiful earrings and bracelet set
• A gas card (which serves as his "paper" he says)
• A sweet card

He also made us breakfast and made me a mimosa. Delish.

And after having a wedding in South Carolina, we didn't have the opportunity to save the top tier of wedding cake to pull out and enjoy, so I bought a little faux top instead. Moving everything 1,000 miles does not lend itself to keeping an already frozen cake frozen, so we improvised. I'm guessing it may have been a little fresher this way anyway, so it's all good.

And thanks to our families and friends, we received a lot of unexpected well wishes. We even received a card that contained different paper samples which cracked me up. Apparently Blogger likes this photo better upside down. Thanks, Mandy!

Cheers to our first year! We made it! And I'm already thinking ahead for next year's traditional gift theme now that I know how hard these can be. Cotton? Really?!