Date Weekend

With tons of holiday plans, baby showers, and knowing that once January hits we'll be staying put waiting for Pop's arrival, a short pre-baby trip was just not panning out. So instead, we decided to take one of our last free weekends of the year and do a staycation of sorts. Here are some highlights (and one low point mixed in)....

The biggest highlight? All weekend with just this guy!

 A local eatery we've been wanting to try for awhile. Loved the atmosphere. Loved the food. Great service and overall delightful dining experience!

 We started with the spring roll appetizer which may have been my favorite part of the meal. For our entrees, Devin went with the Wahoo over rice and cabbage with a balsamic reduction. I went with the filet which was covered in a date and ale marmalade and served over asparagus risotto. Both dishes were amazing. Ironically, half way through we switched meals because we each preferred the other's.

 We skipped dessert at the restaurant and went out for our favorite splurge dessert...

The DeBrand peanut butter and raspberry sundae!

Saturday we did some Christmas shopping (yep - ahead of the game!) and bought our tree, lights, and decor. We had so much fun setting up the tree, hanging outdoor lights, and creating our Christmas house. We also had stopped at a nearby bakery for some of their cupcakes. While decorating, we split the most amazing snickerdoodle cupcake ever made!

We opted for a fake tree...less hassle and next year we'll be good to go.



Christmas house is so cozy...we find ourselves not wanting to leave!



We also hit up a hockey game. Unfortunately the beloved Komets failed to perform. It's not quite as fun having good seats when your team gets shut out. 


It can hardly be called a 'low point' because it was amusing and fun to talk about the rest of the day...but if I had to pick a low point of the weekend it would definitely be this Christmas warehouse we went to. Maybe it's our own fault for venturing into a warehouse that pops up for a few months over Christmastime. We should have known better.  But it's by Devin's work and he said it's always packed so we thought we'd try it out.

The Darlington Holiday Warehouse. Photo for you - Belv! :)

We were smiling as we entered...not so much as we left.
The woman's face on the bottom right should tell you everything you need to know about this place.
Basically this place is a holiday nightmare. Crowded, dingy, and isles chock-full of $1.59 crap. They don't even have trees or lights. Just tons of cheap, break the next day, stocking stuffers, ugly holiday cards, and what I'm assuming are disgusting packaged holiday candy and cookies. As Devin put it, "this place epitomizes why people hate the holidays". Amen.

We quickly realized this was not the place we wanted to be. I did see a couple things that we could use, and Devin grabbed a Diet Coke and we got the heck out. Never again.

Overall, the weekend was so fun and it wasn't as hard to see it end since we were both entering 2.5 day work weeks and fun Thanksgiving/Chicago plans coming up! More on that later...

11 comments:

sarah.flyingkites said...

Loved reading about your staycation. LOL on Darlington and that lady's face :)

Hope you can soak in all this time before baby!! And I can't believe this, but it appears I'm not going to see you in person before he/she arrives. Where does the time go? I at least get to see your very cute preggo pics.

Sarah

leah said...

SO MUCH FUN!

i love your christmas house and so glad for you and dev to get to spend such a fun weekend together. i'm sure you'll remember it for a long time!

now...bring on the holiday fun!

Sara Huber said...

The "All Items $1.59" sign in the back is funny. What a random price.

Your house/lights look great!!

smw said...

what fun!

Molly said...

Love the story about the Christmas store. That is just so fun. Great choice in grabbing the DC and getting the heck out of there!

Daish said...

What a fun weekend! That lady's face is hilarous!! "...should tell you everything you need to know about this place."!!

Betsy said...

Oh Em I loved this. Glad you can find some humor in the Darlington disaster! :) I actually just saw an ad in the paper here for a store that scarily reminds me of that store. Tons of ceramic Santa crap...but they do apparently sell Christmas trees. I hope I never have to go there.

Kendra said...

Sounds like so much fun!

Daveana said...

So many things to say....I keep driving by Baker Street and have been wanting to try it. Glad to know it has an EM stamp of approval! :) Love your Christmas decorations a lot. I've wanted to try out Yum-mee's too!! (I'm thinking I need my own stay-vacation!) It's a shame that I live close to 2 cupcake bakeries and haven't ventured into either one. (I'm quite surprised by this myself.) Bummer about the Komets. :( Better luck next time.

L, Ann and boys said...

smile :)

Ashley Neuen said...

Glad you could enjoy a fun weekend together!