Back into the Woods {a first anniversary get-away}

Camping. What better way for a poor, young couple to spend their first anniversary? 

On the 13th Matt and I celebrated one year of marriage...which is absolutely crazy to me, because I feel like our wedding day could have been yesterday. Anyways, to celebrate we headed out on a little camping trip to the beautiful East Arbutus Campground near Black River Falls, WI. 

God took care of us this last weekend for sure... what we had planned would have made me a cranky wife. We arrived at the campground that we had originally intended to stay at, and it was terrible! We thought it was $12 a night but it would have actually been $24 because we would have to pay for the vehicle too. The water was definitely un-swimable, it was miniature and weird, and I was not feeling it at all. 

When we got to that campground it was after 8:00 p.m. and so we had less than an hour of daylight left to figure out what we were going to do. I wanted to cry. We had picked up a camping information booklet at a road-side information stand in Black River Falls, and I told Matt that I was going to the bathroom and he better start calling some of the other campsites in the booklet because I was not staying at this one! (I can get a little sassy when I feel things are going wrong...)

I came back to the car and he had called East Arbutus Campground (a very nice campground that had showers and was on a nice, swimable, lake). They had 193 sites, and 10 of them were still available, and it would only cost us $15 a night! So we drove back the way we came 16 miles and set up our new tent in a beautiful little site! Yay!

Here is our new tent that we were so excited to use. It is a Coleman 4-person tent that we got for $35 at Aldi. When I was at Target I saw the same exact tent in a different color for $50! Woo-Hoo! Score!

We still don't own sleeping bags or a blow-up mattress so we hauled out the down bedding and our 3 inch memory foam topper - it was very comfortable! I feel like we were almost "Glamping"!

(Saturday evening it rained so we spend a lot of time in the tent playing cards.)

My beautiful view of the trees in the morning!

My husband's charming fire artwork. :) 

If you've been on the "outdoors" section of Pinterest, you've most likely seen these two popular fire starters.One is a TP roll stuffed with lint and wrapped in newspaper. The other is a cotton pad dipped in wax. I decided I would make both, let my pyromaniac husband use both, and give me his opinion to share with ya'll. 

And the verdict is....

The dipped cotton pad worked awesome!

In fact, he kinda hated the other one. He ended up taring it apart to just light the lint on fire.

Saturday morning we played tourist and got some ice cream at this adorable shop! They also had lots of cool candies, antiques, and home decor.

Oh and check out the original cash register...that they still use to check people out! 

I have that same clock...in storage somewhere.

While we were shopping at an antique store in BRF I got my first piece of Jadeite! I figured this was a good time to start my collection because I have wanted to collect Jadeite for a while, and when I saw some pieces at the shop I figured our 1st anniversary would be a good way to remember my first piece. I just love the color of it. Let the collecting begin!!

When we got back to La X, we got all cleaned up to go out to dinner.

Then we came home and got to eat our cake topper for dessert!

It survived its year in the freezer beautifully and tasted so wonderful!

It is Italian Wedding Cake and is extra special because Matt's mom made it and all the other cakes we had at our wedding. :) 

 We also opened presents. I got Matt an Acer Iconia tablet, (also partly his birthday gift) and he is loving it! He got me a T-shirt that says Trophy Wife and has a picture of a trophy on it. Hehehehe!

It was such a wonderful weekend for us! I am so happy to be his wife!!

Blessings, 

Olivia

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