{"id":735,"date":"2018-03-02T11:22:38","date_gmt":"2018-03-02T16:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/?p=735"},"modified":"2018-03-02T11:22:38","modified_gmt":"2018-03-02T16:22:38","slug":"a-is-for-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/index.php\/2018\/03\/02\/a-is-for-anniversary\/","title":{"rendered":"ABC Celebrations-A is for “Anniversary With Cash Only”"},"content":{"rendered":"

We woke on the morning of our 35th anniversary with no plans for the day.\u00a0\u00a0 As our family began to wish us well, we were chastised for not putting in more effort into the celebration.<\/p>\n

I knew we had to come up with an idea, so I quickly challenged Alan to create one of our special dates.\u00a0 We knew we would find a way to work in an ABC adventure.\u00a0 This would become our “Anniversary by Cash” date!<\/p>\n

As with all great anniversary celebrations, there was the checklist of goals to fulfill:<\/p>\n

A-The day needed to fill our appetites<\/span><\/span><\/a> by including dinner and chocolate.\u00a0 Since this was a special celebration, we would toast it with alcohol<\/span><\/span>.\u00a0 We agreed there needed to be ambience<\/span><\/span><\/a>, complete with music, flowers, candlelight and romance.<\/p>\n

B-We really wanted to challenge our creativity, so there was a strict budget<\/span> of $35, one dollar for each year we had been married.<\/p>\n

C-Finally, we needed to demonstrate how much we cherished<\/span> each other.\u00a0 This needed to be in writing, but could not be in a card.\u00a0 Everything needed to be paid for in cash<\/span>.<\/p>\n

\"Budget\"<\/a>
The budget and goals for our anniversary.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Alan worked for a bit in the morning, returning home around 2 to pick me up.\u00a0 I told him to dress warm, we were going to be outside. I was deliberately vague with our destination, figuring we would see where the day took us. The sun was shining and the temperature was a balmy 28 degrees!\u00a0 After the stagnant winter we had been experiencing, we needed some fresh air.\u00a0 We left home bundled against the elements and ready to explore.<\/p>\n

We headed toward one of our favorite little towns called Empire.\u00a0 I wanted to get the chocolate part of the date out of the way while we still had money.\u00a0 (Not really, I just wanted chocolate!)<\/p>\n

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\"Our<\/a>
Our chocolate goal!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Just outside of Empire, a bright green building shines like a beacon against the snowy backdrop.\u00a0 Who would ever expect to find a chocolatier in this part of the world?\u00a0 Grocer’s Daughter <\/span><\/span>imports their chocolate from Equador and<\/span><\/a> ships their handmade confections around across the country.<\/p>\n

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\"Handmade<\/a>
Handmade chocolates and fresh hot chocolate.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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I momentarily considered using the free sample, to fulfill our chocolate goal, but decided that would just be cheap.\u00a0 Instead I purchased a sweet little bumble bee (my namesake), to share with Alan.\u00a0 Our budget was now down a dollar.<\/p>\n

Knowing this store had likely not had much business on this cold winter day, I wasn’t going to be THAT cheap, so I also purchased hot chocolate mix.\u00a0 I did not count this in my budget because it would be consumed on a different day. <\/p>\n

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\"Yes,<\/a>
Yes, it really was that cold!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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After our chocolate, we headed towards Empire beach.\u00a0 In the summer, we often frequent this location to watch couples get married, or just observe a sunset.\u00a0 The scenery looks far different in the winter.\u00a0 The frozen landscape was equally as beautiful.\u00a0 The beach was full of ice balls.\u00a0 These are a phenomenon which occur mostly in Lake Michigan.\u00a0 They develop when chunks of ice break off from larger sheets of ice.\u00a0 As the smaller pieces tumble in the waves, they mix with slush.\u00a0 The rhythmic action of the waves, rolls them into perfect balls, eventually throwing them onto the shore.\u00a0\u00a0 They made walking along the beach a little difficult, but determined, we persisted.<\/p>\n

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\"Frozen<\/a>
Frozen landscape!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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We are fortunate to live in a place with such stunning scenery.\u00a0It had been weeks since we had, had a clear day. The day was particularly bright, as if the sun had come out just for us.\u00a0\u00a0 We had brought along our snowshoes, which we hoped to try for the first time.\u00a0 I don’t know what we were thinking, but we definitely would not be snow shoeing today.<\/p>\n

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\"Our<\/a>
Our love grows daily.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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It was very windy on the beach, so after our walk, we posed long enough for a kiss and then we moved on.<\/p>\n

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We were enjoying our winter date so much, that we wanted to continue driving around the Sleeping Bear area.\u00a0 Soon we found ourselves in Glen Haven<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 There is a secluded beach near the Day Canning Company, a historic building which is part of the fabric of this community.<\/p>\n

\"Much<\/a>
Much less wind in Glen Haven.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With all of our walking, we were now ready to enjoy a little break.\u00a0 The blue blanket was spread upon the windswept snow for the mini picnic which I had packed. Alan had been creative too.\u00a0 He had brought along his new bluetooth speaker, which I had given him for Christmas.\u00a0 He hooked it up to his phone to play a recorded version of “our” song, “For Your Eyes Only”.\u00a0 This was from a James Bond movie by the same name, which was also the first date that we had gone on.\u00a0 The music seemed in stark contrast to the frozen seclusion we were enjoying.\u00a0 As we slow danced in the frigid air, anyone observing us, might have thought we were crazy.<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/a>
A winter picnic!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Reflecting on our many years of memories Alan enjoyed a cup of hot tea, while I drank my hot chocolate, which was from a packet of Nestle instant, not the lovely chocolate which I had purchased from Grocer’s Daughter. The icy air soon cooled our drinks off, so we downed them quickly.<\/p>\n

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I think the cold was affecting us.\u00a0 We grew silly and made snow angels and wrote notes to each other in the snow.<\/p>\n

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All around us seemed to be glowing with a golden light, it seemed perfect to reflect the celebration of our love.\u00a0 \u00a0 We had now completed three goals…to express our love in writing, to have a date with music and to eat chocolate.<\/p>\n

\"Alan<\/a>
Alan bought me roses!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With thirty four dollars remaining, we headed to Traverse City to complete our date.\u00a0 Looking for wine, we stopped at a local grocery store, where we found a single serving of boxed vino, on sale, for just under three dollars.\u00a0 Since we don’t really drink alcohol<\/span><\/span><\/a>, we decided this would be plenty. \u00a0 As we were leaving the store, a gumball machine, containing tattoos, caught my eye.\u00a0 Here were my flowers!\u00a0 It took 2 attempts to get a flower, but a rose was delivered on the second insertion of 50 cents.\u00a0 We were down to thirty dollars.\u00a0 Two more missions were now complete.\u00a0 We then decided to head to the dollar store, where we found some wine glasses which seemed appropriate for the day.\u00a0 We debated losing two dollars from our budget, but decided they were too cute not to purchase.\u00a0 We also picked up a candle to add a little ambience to our dinner.\u00a0 With a few more items off of our list, we had twenty seven dollars remaining.\u00a0 We still needed to feed ourselves.<\/p>\n

\"Wine,<\/a>
Wine, cheaper than therapy!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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All that remained on our checklist was dinner.\u00a0 Alan decided it was time to get Lucky(s).\u00a0 Get your mind out of the gutter!\u00a0 It’s a local fresh food market which has an amazing food bar.\u00a0 We chose\u00a0 homemade tomato and fennel soup, with fresh sandwiches and apple turnovers.\u00a0\u00a0 We now had all our food and drinks.\u00a0 We had even come in with 53 cents left in our budget!\u00a0 Finally we could head home with our goodies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"It<\/a>
It was time to get Lucky(s)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"On<\/a>
On budget, with 53 cents to spare!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Our abode is our favorite place to be.\u00a0 As we evaluated how our Anniversary had been, we marveled at our adventure.\u00a0 Reflecting on our day, we realized what an amazing anniversary we indeed enjoyed.\u00a0 Every goal had been met.\u00a0 With one exception, it had been the perfect celebration. \u00a0 We would highly encourage you not to purchase cheap wine in a box, no matter how much you want to fulfill a goal! Happy 35th Anniversary to “Us”.\u00a0 I wonder what we will do to top it next year.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary with dinner, flowers, candlelight and wine.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We woke on the morning of our 35th anniversary with no plans for the day.\u00a0\u00a0 As our family began to wish us well, we were chastised for not putting in more effort into the celebration. I knew we had to come up with an idea, so I quickly challenged Alan to create one of our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,11,24,26],"tags":[113,125,163,190,200,235,279,302,338,362],"class_list":["post-735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventures","category-relationships-spouse","category-celebrations","category-dates","tag-anniversary","tag-beach","tag-date","tag-food-and-drink","tag-goal","tag-lake-michigan","tag-picnic","tag-scenery","tag-town","tag-winter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcexplorers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}