Thrifty, Crafty, Fun: Nine Happy Years

Michael and I just celebrated our ninth wedding anniversary. (And by "just" I mean two busy months ago, oh well.) We have held up the tradition every year of giving each other the traditional wedding gifts. Mainly this originated because I found this great book, The Bride's Book, before we were married and it had the list of gifts in the back. It has been fun to think up creative gifts for each other, as well as fill in the blanks through the years.

This year the suggested gift was willow. What a weird category. The only thing we could think of at first that was made from willow was a basket, and that seemed pretty boring. Maybe if we owned a house we could have planted a willow tree, but I'm sure we couldn't fit one on our apartment balcony.

Then I was stuck by inspiration when I was at The Tattered Cover in downtown Denver with Colleen and Katie. One of Michael's favorite books is The Wind and the Willows. I knew we already owned 2 copies of the book, so it seemed redundant to buy another. However, I did find a DVD version of the old TV show. I didn't even know that the show existed. So this was a perfect find.

Michael and I have watched a little bit of it and it's quite amusing. Michael loves it whenever woodland creatures dress up in proper attire and speak in British accents, so it was really a perfect gift. However, as great a gift that it was to give, it could not compare with the AWESOME present that Michael gave me. He found a giant metal willow tree to hang on the wall.