Our first wedding anniversary

Dan and I were married by the grace of God on a beautiful fall day, October 23, 2010. For several months up until our anniversary day, I would remissness about all of the planning we did "a year ago...". I really think I enjoy thinking about all of the preparation it took to prepare for the wedding a little bit more than I enjoyed it at the time... or maybe I just appreciate it more after seeing how everything came together and produced such a beautiful result. I am also thankful for all of the joyful memories I have during the planning process. Too many times, we get wrapped up in the little negativities that the larger, more joyful aspects in life become drowned out. Believe me, I would be lying if I said "everything went smooth during the 5 months it took to plan our wedding". In then end, we were married by our pastor, in our church surrounded by our family and friends and their blessings. In the end, we became husband and wife and I would have the same last name as my daughter and her daddy. In the end, it was in fact the first day, the beginning of a beautiful life together.'

My husband works 3rd shift, so I woke up to "breakfast in bed" (my favorite Mickey D's breakfast), a dozen roses and the most perfect card I can undoubtedly say I have ever received! The rest of the day went as most days go with my daughter and I as he sleeps. By the time Tahlia went down for her nap, was the time Dan woke up. We left shortly thereafter...

We headed west and Dan really wanted me to guess where we were going, so I took the most predictable guess and said, "Texas Roadhouse and the movie theater?"- this is one of our staple dates, but since we are paying off debt and living on a tighter budget, we do not do this much... and we really enjoy that date when we do go on it, so it was a fair guess. But he just grinned and wanted me to guess some more. I guessed one more thing but every exit we passed, the options were becoming more and more limited.

I nearly gave up on trying to guess ANYTHING when we passed Brookfield until I realized there was one more place... a place that is very memorable to us now and we were nearly there. I sighed and just said, "Now that is sweet!" because I knew, he was taking me to eat dinner at the Delafield Brewhaus... the restaurant our reception was held a year ago :) It was perfect! It turned out the meals we ordered for ourselves... we ended up switching plates because I would rather have his meal and he would have rather had mine. After dinner, we went down stairs to their reception hall... just to look at it and escape to memory lane. We had so much fun on our wedding day... we both concluded that it would be nice to somehow relive it... perhaps we would be back some day wayyy in he future.

He than had one more surprise for me. We headed back east and after passing that movie theater... I had no idea. When we got off the exit to go home, I was so confused. At home, he had me look for a movie among our very large movie collection (I was only slightly annoyed because he gave me no clues on where to start at the beginning). After he narrowed it down to BluRay, I found it a min or 2 after. He bought "Australia"!- the very first movie we saw together at the movie theater! Cuddling and watching our first movie was how we ended our anniversary day... and I couldnt have been happier! :)

You might be wondering what I did for my husband for our anniversary.... well...
Seeing how the first anniversary gift is traditionally paper, I made him a very special book online and gave it to him a little early because I couldnt wait:

Made by me, from cover... to cover :)

The first page

This book had all of the staple events that happened from the moment we met to the day we became married.

Including the birth of our daughter :)

I wish I could show you the whole book, but with 20 pages of fun illustrations, it would be too much :)
I hope you enjoyed!