Weekend Away

Last year, my battle buddies (Ana and Rikki) got to thinking about planning a trip with our husbands when they returned home. You see it is this kind of long term travel planning that helped get us through much of the deployment. Planning was my happy place where I got to look forward to Chris coming home. So we said New York at Christmas time for Ana and my 30th Birthday.....ice skating at Rockefeller, a carriage ride to see the lights in Central Park, and some Rockettes dressed in Santa hats. But as the deployment was nearing its end we all came to a reality that this would be a difficult trip with leaving small children, and leaving jobs that husbands just came back to (how do you ask off from work when you've been gone over a year?), and of course in our case...the money. You see when originally planned, I also thought I would be working full time. So instead of cancelling a trip all together (and we WILL be coming to NY one day!), we opted for just a smaller scale, more relaxing, closer to home sort of getaway. So we booked this Hill Country Holiday Weekend in Fredericksburg and it was absolutely stress free and perfect!
Friday Chris and I both worked so we missed the Christmas parade downtown and free appetizers at our B&B. But we had our friends come to our suite for some wine, cheese, fruit, chocolate, chips n dip and some great conversation until 2am. The next morning a basket of the most delicious breakfast came warm and ready at our door step. This was so my style....I didn't have to even get dressed or put on make up to go to breakfast! Chris was slow to recover from the night before but we finally made it to Main Street for some shopping. Federicksburg quite possibly has the cutest Main Street shopping that I've ever seen. We didn't even get through half of the stores and let me tell you that this little town banks....the foot traffic alone was ridiculous. For those of you who don't know, Fredericksburg is sort of the center of Texas Wine Country and it has the most B&Bs,vineyards and peach farms in Texas. Charming homes, cottages, and histoical buildings line the streets along with a lot of unique boutiques. The stores can get sort of pricey since its so touristy now, but I love it. Here are some more highlights of the weekend...

Here is the main house at The Hoffman Haus. It was surrounded by quaint cottages like a little village.

Dinner at The Nest was cozy and delicious!

The whole gang...together again!

Me and Chris

Ana and Ben

Rikki and Chris

The wine at the Vineyard made Ben crazy and he started pulling his wife into the mud...boots and all!

Sunset at Torre di Pietra Vineyard

The Holiday Wine Trail was going on in Texas wine country. This Vineyard had a dance floor and some really great live music.

Back on Main Street, the St. Nicholas Market had an outdoor ice skating rink. Not the biggest or smoothest, but pretty good for Texas standards I suppose.

The Wooden German Carousel Tower Thing (I'm sure there is a name for it). I've seen the ones you put on the table with candles, but this was HUGE!

And so was the Christmas tree in the middle of downtown.

Chris, Ben, and Ana hanging out on the porch of The Peach Tree (cafe and shop).

After shopping, wining and dining we had our friends over for some hot chocolate by the fire. The perfect ending to the perfect weekend. Seriously this was one of my favorite trips ever, because it was totally casual, an hour and a half from our home, and I actually felt relaxed...no flights to catch or anywhere to be at a certain time...it was a stress free weekend of leisure. Just my style. I hope this becomes an annual tradition!