10 year Wedding Anniversary trip!!!

at the very beautiful Inn on Crescent Lake B&B.... Our room, "The Ballroom," was located on the 3rd floor- or top L in this pic where the 4 dormer windows are. It's actually the old Mansion Ballroom that they turned into a suite.

It is a 1915 Georgian Colonial Mansion, on 22 acres of land, surrounded by 2 crescent shaped ponds.

***So the irony in the name of where we stayed is this- we got married in Eureka Springs, and had our Wedding Reception at The Crescent Moon Hotel there. At one point we had considered going on our 10 year trip to St.Louis. So instead we stayed here, Excelsior Springs, at

The Crescent Inn on the Lake, which is on St.Louis Ave. I just loved the similarities, and thought that it was so fitting of a place for our 10 year anniversary trip***

This is the picture from the website that made me fall in love with the B&B. As I've said before, I have really high standards for where I stay- a lot of it has to do with the Architecture and how well they kept with period decor. If it's not tastefully done, then I'm not going to stay there.

Here is a great aerial pic from their website showing the property

Here is our beautiful Ballroom Suite- with my Princess Canopy Bed. I have never in my life slept more comfortably than I did this weekend- the fabric softener she used smells delicious, and I was seriously in love with it.

The pretty bathroom suite with jetted Jacuzzi Tub. love.

The view of the property at night- which was gorgeous. The pergola at the bottom R side of the picture was wrapped with lights that went over the outdoor hot tub. It was beautiful. I'm still not letting go of my pergola dream for my own backyard.

So when Seavie and I first were dreaming of where we would go to celebrate our 10 year anniversary, we initially really wanted to go to Daytona Beach in FL. Specifically in February- so we could see Daytona 500, because we're both huge Nascar fan's. And it's right next to the beach, so win win. We knew early on that that was just going to be a dream, especially after having to buy a replacement car, and me not working. So we got a good laugh this year when we watched the race on tv this year. Not only did it rain all weekend, but the race was delayed several times. So had we actually gone, we would have had to pay extra to switch flights, stay extra nights, and not be able to enjoy the beach because it would have been raining. So it wasn't meant to be, and we had peace with that. Also, I was in the hospital in January, and now have a $4500 hospital bill to pay for, which was totally unexpected. But we agreed early on that we were not going to sacrifice our anniversary weekend at the sake of feeling overwhelmed by bills. The same went for when we bought our replacement t.v. If you're going to be poor, you might as well be happy right?

So rewinding back to last summer- we've seen everything happen in God's timing and his will for this series of events. Had I not gotten a job at aapc, I probably wouldn't have been able to afford to go to TX for Erin's wedding. But we did go, then we had the car accident, which if that hadn't happened, I probably wouldn't have gotten a 2nd job. But I did get a 2nd job- and then about a month later- wham. a gigantic hospital visit to pay for, and now some other health issues. So thankfully that 2nd job at the hospital allowed us to have $ to actually do something for our anniversary. Had it not been for that, we probably wouldn't have had this dream weekend, and also not had the means to pay off these medical bills and feel completely overwhelmed- just like we did almost 6 years ago. So all that to say that everything happens for a reason. I love my "new" car, I love my 2 jobs, and I love that I had a weekend away with my hubby. So good has come out of it so far. Even though the accident is still not settled with Insurance 6+ months later, I can only hope it happens soon, and nothing major will come from it.

So back to our weekend trip...

We left Friday morning after dropping off the kids at school/Aunt's house, and headed for Excelsior Springs. Our check in time was at 4pm, and it was kind of a cloudy/rainy day, so we decided to make that our shopping/explore downtown day. The town itself is beautiful, and in the process of continued revitalization. We first went to a shop called Redmond's. It was in this gorgeous old building with pressed tin ceilings and 2 separate mezzanines. I was in love. I told Seavie it would make an awesome loft house in my alternate reality. Just breathtaking. We also went to a place called Broadway Bargains- which was a thrift store in an old church- because I can't leave my bargain shopping behind on vacation. Didn't find anything there, so moved on to historical landmarks. This beautiful building below is called The Hall of Waters. Beautiful Art Deco style building. That gigantic bar you see in the middle was a Water Bar. The town started off of their variety of mineral springs, and this bar tapped in all the town favorites. People were being healed of various ailments by these different waters back in the day.

After that, we moved on to the Excelsior Springs Museum, where we had the nicest older gentleman as our tour guide for about 2 hours. Best $4 ever spent. This is a beautiful old bank with original interior. We learned a lot about the town history etc.

For lunch, we went to a place downtown called Ray's Diner. It was an original 1930's vintage diner. I had a cheeseburger with onion rings, and the onion rings were to die for. I was loving every single bite. After lunch, we strolled down main street, went to an original old Hardware store- which are always fun because they have so much unique stuff, and found a local Antique mall that had lots of funky old things- but Seavie wasn't loving the lamps, so I had to move on. Besides that, there weren't many other shops we were interested in, so we headed just a little outside of town, and found 3 giant flea market/antique stores that we explored for a few hours. Finally 4pm came around and we went to go check into the B&B. The front drive is breathtaking, made us feel like we were millionaires. We hung out for a few hours- and then went back into town for dinner at this amazing restaurant called Ventana's. We had heard great things about it. It was a casual/upscale atmosphere and they had a live piano player that evening. We both had a 7 oz.steak with loaded mashed potatoes and green beans- and it was delicious. The best thing the incredible berry/cookies n cream homemade cheesecake for dessert. Yum. We were stuffed. Came back and watched "50 first dates" movie in our room. It was a great night.

The next morning, Saturday, we actually got to sleep in. Breakfast was at 9am, and also incredibly delicious. Gourmet breakfast casserole, 2 biscuits, grapes with powdered sugar, sausage, and a hashbrown- with oj. Since we had already done most everything there was to do in town, we decided to drive down to Liberty, since it was only about 15 minutes south of there. We were excited to go back, since we had stayed there for our 1 year wedding anniversary and loved the town. Sadly, there was hardly anything left in the large town square. So we decided to use our gps to help us find some local antique stores. The first place it took us to, actually was someone's house in a newer neighborhood, which we got a good laugh out of. But the gps redeemed itself by taking us to a place called Timeless Treasure's in Claycomo. I got 2 old fashioned children's photos, and a vintage clock that I'm in love with. Seavie got 2 antique license plates and an old road sign. It was a great store- the only annoying part was this group of highly obnoxious and loud older women who came into the store maybe 10 minutes after us. I spent a good part of time trying to avoid them and their horrible chatter. So right next door was a Maj-R-Thrift, and I just love this store in Olathe. Seavie had never been to one, so we went through it, didn't stay too long, which I would have loved to look for new clothes, but didn't want to torture Seavie with that, so we headed back to Excelsior Springs for some lunch at Wabash BBQ.

This BBQ restaurant is located at an old train depot right across the street from The Elms (which is currently being renovated to re-open next month- but we didn't stay there because it's supposedly haunted- and we know how that ends). So we both had the pulled pork sandwich- it was incredible honestly- probably the best we've ever had. So after lunch, we went back to the B&B, and went on a paddle boat ride. It was really a lot of fun, just floating down the little pond together. Our boat started taking on water about 1/2 way back, so poor Seavie had to take off his shoes, and go barefoot to peddle. We made it back safely to shore, and then went on a walk down the walking path they have on the property. It was such a beautiful day outside, and it was great just having time together. We went back to the room, and watched tv for a while, and found this freakin hilarious tv show called "My cat from hell" on animal planet. For those of you who know me really well, you know that I absolutely hate cats... with a passion. Well this show is all about trying to change the cats behavior so the owner's don't have to get rid of them. It was quite funny, and really quite sad that the people were so whipped by their cats. We went back in town that night to Ventana again, since it was so yummy. This time we tried different things, my pasta was okay, but the cheese crusted pita bread that came with it was great. For dessert, we shared a piece of Peanut Butter chocolate cheesecake. Oh my goodness, it was delicious. Homemade cheesecake is heavenly. We should have only had dessert, we were so stuffed after a day of eating yummy food. We had to walk around for a while after that. So we went back to the B&B and finally got to go enjoy the hot tub outside for about an hour, since it was such a nice night. Then we watched "Double Jeopardy" which we hadn't seen in forever. A perk of the B&B was that they had complimentary fresh baked cookies and pop-which we loved. The owner was sweet and gave us a complimentary sparkling grape juice to toast with for our anniversary. It was really sweet. We've been through a lot these last 10 years, and it was nice to be able to celebrate being on a new chapter of our lives.

Sunday morning, we got to sleep in again. I totally fell in love with the fabric softener that the sheets smelled like. It was like I was on a Gain or a febreeze commercial. Yum. Going to find that at the store soon... So breakfast was authentic french toast with strawberries and cream in the middle layer. With real pieces of french bread, that were more like buttered toast, not egg coated. The owner is originally from France, and is an amazing chef. This was served with little smokie like sausages. It was just incredible. Check out time was 11am. So after that we headed back to Wabash BBQ for lunch. This time Seavie and I split a Brisket sandwich, which was really good, but the pork was definitely the best. Then we headed off to our Historical Park day.

We went to Watkins Mill State Park, which is in Kearney. For $4/piece we got to tour both this awesome Textile Mill from the mid 1800's

and this beautiful house that was part of the property. It had original woodwork and furnishings and it had 2 crazy staircases that made ours look relatively calm. They had 11 kids that shared a total of 2-3 bedrooms. Boys on one side of the house, girls on the other- with separate staircases. They had an amazing farm set-up. The entire basement was basically a gigantic refrigerator- one area for dairy, one for meat, and one for fruits. There was a smokehouse, summer kitchen, fruit dehydrator shed, 1 acre garden, chicken/turkey coop. It was incredible. How would you have liked to be that farm wife cooking for 15-25 people a day- family and farm hands included?

Then after leaving the Watkins Mill State Park, we headed off to the Jesse James Farmstead, also in Kearney. They have an amazing museum there with a video history, as well as a lot of historical items that belonged to him and his family. Seavie is a huge Wild West/Cowboy fan, so we had to stop here and see what the true story of Jesse James was. I honestly learned a lot. I had no clue that his whole reason for getting into the gang was for revenge against the Union army. He was also involved with Quantrill's raiders, who did a lot of damage in the KS/MO area. Some random facts about Jesse James, his father was a Baptist Preacher. Jesse married his first cousin, and they had 4 kids, the twins passed away at 1 month old. His brother Frank was the calm, passive one. Jesse was shot in the back by a friend who wanted the reward money that had been offered as a hit on his life. We also got to tour his farmstead that he grew up on. As pictured below.

It was a great tour, and we had a great time. We both love Historical Places, so we definitely got in a lot of that over the weekend. The weather was absolutely perfect Sat/Sun, so it was great to get some R&R and have a weekend off of work and kid duty. Now it's back to reality!