weekend away

I love surprises. 

I love getting them and springing them on people. 

I love thinking of just the right thing for just the right time in a person's life to surprise them with.

This past Friday I told my hubs that we had dinner reservations, and he had to get home at 6:30. He came in rather frazzled at 6:45 and off we went just 30 miles away to McKinney. When we pulled up to a big, old, victorian-style house that said "B&B" out front, he got suspicious.  "Uhhh...what are we doing?" 

"SPENDING THE NIGHT SURPRISE!"

I had called my mom the week before to babysit our sweet nugget while I kidnapped my hubs for a night, finding a B&B in a nearby small town. He has been working crazy long hours for the past month, to the point that we hadn't really been seeing each other and it was all kinds of time to reconnect and do what we love to do - explore, eat great food, and wander a new place.

So Friday night after his shock wore off we headed to the town square where we wandered in and out of antique shops and listened to local musicians. As it got closer to dinnertime, we checked out the McKinney Wine Merchant, as our dinner reservations were at Gregory's Bistro, which was BYOB. Y'all. The food was completely amazing. We had mussels to start - lemon, jalepeno mussels. K ordered the sirloin, and I ordered scallops. Both came with white truffle mashed potatoes, and I had some grilled asparagus on the side. Bliss, people. Gregory is legit - he was born in France and has been cooking like crazy his whole life. I am glad he ended up in Texas, because he is a genius, and our food was absolutely incredible. Afterward, we went around the corner for some gelato and then headed back to the B&B. 

The next morning, since we are parents now and cannot physically sleep in, we hopped in the hot tub on our porch before breakfast, which I'm pretty sure is the best way to start any morning, ever. Our hosts fed us pecan waffles and fruit and then we were off to the Franconia Brewery. The tour was really informative (to me, at least - the hubs has been known to brew some beers). I learned a lot about what it means to sustainably brew, and I have a lot of respect for what Franconia is doing: adhering to the German brewing purity laws, not bottling until they can work out a system of reusing their bottles like they do in Europe, and in general putting out some tasty beverages. We sat with a lovely English couple, making jokes in the warm early afternoon sun, then made our way home.

We had a fabulous, much needed relaxing weekend. Hopefully this will be a new tradition for us, exploring the small towns around Texas.