Hello readers! Today, I turn the age of 20. In fact, at exactly 5:20 pm today, I was considered one year older and one year closer to the big “21”. Since I’m not really one to have a huge birthday celebration (I’m humble), and since there’s not much to do in Winona during the week, I decided to do my “celebration” this past weekend with my best friend, and photographer of the blog, Mackenzie. Mackenzie and I are like the same person, so of course I knew that she would enjoy the plans I made for us. So, here is what we did this past Saturday…

First, I planned on a stop at the historic “Pickwick Mill”.

Since Mackenzie and I are huge history buffs, I knew this was the perfect place to go when I first saw it online. Pickwick Mill was built using local limestone in 1856 by Thomas Grant and Wilson Davis. It is one of the oldest water-powered mills in Minnesota, consists of six floors, and was first used as a saw mill before being changed to a flour mill. It has changed owners many times and now is under ownership of the Pickwick Mill Inc. (To learn more, visit their website!)  For my first outfit, I decided to go with a classic trend of a military vest (which I’m obsessed with already) and paired it with some jeans and some adorable combat boots.

The mill was beautiful, and I just had to snap some shots near the water outside!

Next, we headed to Alma to visit the “Castlerock Museum“. The museum features a lot of cool artifacts, such as real Roman helmets and swords, Vikings swords, some Pikemen, chain mail armor, fluted Maximilian armor from 1520, and one of Henry VIII’s gun shields, which all of course greatly excited the both of us! Though I didn’t get pictures of myself in the museum (aside from the two below- there was no flash photography allowed), if you followed me on Snapchat, you could see many snaps I took of the various exhibits!

I even got to try on a gauntlet from around 1500 and hold a mace, which were used by monarchs throughout history to convey authority and power! It was amazing.

(We took these pictures below just blocks from the museum, at the Lock & Dam in Alma.)

The last stop I had for the day was to one of my favorite places to be in the fall: an apple orchard. I love being able to go to orchards where I can pick my favorite apples (honeycrisp), and also enjoy other foods, such as salsa. Every year, I buy corn salsa and apples, and this year was no exception. So, after a quick outfit change, we headed over to  “Ecker’s Apple Farm“.

For my last outfit, I decided to go with one of the recent fashion trends: the sweater with a scarf overlay, with a belt keeping the scarf in place. It adds a little flare to the outfit, which I love.

After that, and with cheese curds, apples, and salsa in hand, Mackenzie and I returned to Winona for some pizza at Godfather’s and well-needed relaxation time. It was a perfect birthday celebration and ending to my last teenage year. Here’s to many more!

**OUTFIT DETAILS**

Look 1:

Top: Wet Seal (old, similar here) // Vest: Nordstrom (bought it on sale, similar here) // Jeggings: Decree at JCPenney // Boots: JCPenney // Bracelet: gifted to me // Sunglasses: VS PINK // Earrings: gifted

Look 2:

Sweater:  JCPenney (similar here) // Scarf: JCPenney // Jeans: JCPenney // Belt: JCPenney // Boots: JCPenney // Boot Socks: JCPenney // Sunglasses: VS PINK // Headband: JCPenney

Thanks for reading!!