our first anniversary.

(super adorable card i made for jon....)

when we got married, we decided to keep up the tradition of getting your spouse a traditional wedding anniversary gift for every year you are together. my sister katie and her husband have been doing it for EIGHT years now. here is the list. 

First: Paper

Second: Cotton

Third: Leather

Fourth: Fruit or Flowers

Fifth: Wood

Sixth: Candy or Iron 

Seventh: Wool or Copper

Eighth: Bronze or Pottery

Ninth: Pottery

Tenth: Tin 

Eleventh: Steel 

Twelfth: Silk or Linen 

Thirteenth: Lace

Fourteenth: Ivory

Fifteenth: Crystal

Twentieth: China

Twenty-Fifth: Silver

Thirteieth: Pearls

Thirty-Fifth: Coral

Fortieth: Ruby

Forty-Fifter: Sapphire

Fiftieth: Gold

Fifty-Fifth: Emerald

Sixtieth: Diamond

how cute is that? i can't wait until we get to our fortieth, fiftieth, and sixtieth...

BUT, i love how they progressively (for the most part) get nicer and nicer. and I think it is so funny and cute that year one was paper since...that's about all anyone can afford on year one. 

we decided, somewhat last minute, that i was going to plan our celebration. 

we had a chocolate-chocolate cake for our wedding. we saved the top of it....but.....it got lost. my dad had his wedding cake AND our wedding cake in his freezer. they didn't eat their cake on their one year anniversary (or their second...or third...). he got a new freezer. he knew they were never going to eat theirs, so he threw it out. but...it was actually our cake that he threw out. not sure how you could confuse your white wedding cake for someone else's chocolate wedding cake-but that is neither here, nor there. we were pretty bummed, but realized that the cake probably wouldn't be any good, anyway. 

we had a random groupon that we had bought, so we decided to use that and go on a picnic. we drove downtown and got our pizza, then parked our car and took the ferry to coronado!!!

 here we are on the boat on the way there! it was so much fun to be out on the water with such beautiful views of both downtown and coronado island. 

when we got on the island, i had a teeny tiny surprise for jon. i had him walk to cold stone with me and pick up our personalized ice cream chocolate-chocolate cake! he was so surprised and the cake was absolutely magnificent! 

then we walked toward the beach to find some grass for our picnic. 

it was so fun, and our date couldn't have been more perfect. it was simple, and gave us a lot of time to talk and reminisce about our first year together. 

so, about the gifts...

jon bought a frame, and put our marriage license in it! how cute is that for a "paper" gift?? right now it is propped up on the new shelves above our desk. i love seeing it displayed with our dads signatures at the bottom as witnesses and the phrase at the top "Marriage for Time and Eternity."

for my gift to jon, i got us some flying paper sky lanterns. !!

i got us two, for fear that one of them wouldn't work. it was so much fun and we have decided to make it a tradition! every year, we are going to buy the same amount of lanterns as years that we have been married and set them free! i can not wait until our 50th anniversary when all our kids and grandkids are helping us light 50 lanterns to send up into heaven.  

it was the perfect day, and i look forward to many, many more anniversaries with my babos. ;)