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We spent this past weekend re-living our wedding as it was our first anniversary together. I must say, we milked it for all it was worth (because we'll never have another 1st anniversary again). In true anniversary fashion, we decided to keep with the traditional gifts each year.. and this year was paper.

I didn't have much of a problem coming up with a gift for John, what with my creative-ness and "out of the box" thinking. But my poor engineer husband, who needs to have order, structure and straight-forward-ness had a harder time. So what did we end up doing and receiving?

I gave John a picture book of our wedding and pictures. I had it made through Picaboo, as I got a steal of a deal for it, a free hard-back book up to 20 pages (I got the deal sent to me through my email.. otherwise known as spam. But who can resist that kind of spam?). So each evening I sat on our couch while we watched TV and edited, copy & pasted, and clicked my evening away for about 2 weeks. John just thought I was playing on facebook the whole time ;) I added several extra pages to fit everything I wanted to. Lucky for me he LOVED it. Now we can tote around our picture book to family reunions, get-togethers and such instead of lugging our wedding albums with us. It will make a wonderful coffee table book, and conversation piece for the rest of our lives. Sentimental, thoughtful, and paper = success!

John did manage to give me a gift that I will hold dear to me the rest of my life. He surprised me with a basket. Not just your run-of-the-mill basket, but a basket filled with paper (a subtle nod to our requirement). After looking closer, he had printed out the menu to where we were to have dinner that night, as he had prepared reservations for us at The Angus Barn. It was rolled up and wrapped with ribbon. He had also printed (and cut out and backed with coordinating card stock) the movie listings for our local theater. Who knew my John could be so creative?!? (my card making must be rubbing off on him.. hehe). Along with the other paper items in there, were hand written love letters and poems (also cut out and backed with card stock) So sweet!

We spent the day around the house and doing some piddly things. Dinner was wonderful and so special. Because it was our anniversary, they gave us a celebratory 8 inch pound cake to take home. So yummy! We had some time to kill before the movie, so we went shopping a little and walked outside enjoying the cool fall weather. We chose to see a scary movie, because last year after our wedding (we had a honeymoon at home), we chose to see a creepy film, so we decided to keep the tradition.

Sunday night we went to dinner at my parents house and celebrated with family and friends. Mom had the top of our wedding cake waiting for us for dessert as she had frozen it for us. I'll admit, we were both really sceptical about how good our cake would be a year later. We had visions of freezer burnt icing and dry cake crumbles, but to our relief it was AWESOME! We all agreed it was better than on our wedding day!
So there you have it. Our first anniversary. Sentimental, traditional, and perfectly us. I plan on keeping the sweet poems and letters John wrote and framing them for a wall in our house. Do you have any anniversary stories or fun things you do each year? I can't wait to hear!

Hmm.. now what to do about year 2. Cotton. Ideas?

**as a side note, today, John and I *finally* booked our honeymoon. We'll be living it up in the Mexican Riviera early next year!**