a whole week

I'm still here! Sorry I left my readers (all 3 of them :) ) hanging this week. This has probably been the busiest week I've had in Missouri. My new job, which I'm really enjoying, is going great! So here is a real quick recap of the week:

Camping was a blast! I really enjoyed the calmness/laziness of camping. We went on a 2 mile trail around a lake at the state park, but when we went around to the edge of the lake, we were walking right next to a soy bean field. That's just not what I want to see on a nature hike, you know? So we decided against more hiking. We finally got to use our cast iron dutch oven. It was really neat cooking over the fire. I will have to say it was a little difficult controlling the heat, but our chili was delicious. It rained on Sunday morning, so that kind of stunk, but over all we had a great anniversary trip.

Making chili with the spurtle!

Breakfast: part 1 (part 2 was eggs, bacon and hash browns)

happy campers!

We had our anniversary cake on Sunday night after a great steak dinner. The cake was really good, as good as on our wedding day. The only thing was there was a TON of icing on it. I'm thinking she did this to protect the cake from a year in the freezer, because our wedding day cake didn't have that much on it.

The green icing sort of faded to gray, but our strawberry swirl cake was perfect!

So I'm sure all of you are curious about what was in the big box, right???? Well, this dear husband of mine MADE me a pasta dryer. I've been looking at them online, but he made me one! I like this one so much more than him buying one. I love that he took the time to make it and I had no idea. Now I'll be able to make loads of pasta and dry them properly.

p.s. I got Mike tools for his gift. You can never go wrong with tools, right?