Summer Vacation 2011: Day 3

Sunday was the last day of our mini-vacation. We got up and cleaned the house and packed. We checked out by 11am and decided to go to a few places that we hadn't been yet. I initially thought we'd go to The Local Flavor for lunch because it was so good when Michelle and I were here. As I was looking through the travler's guide in the house, I saw the Rockin' Pig Saloon. From the pictures, it looked like it was a biker bar, but the pictures of their food looked amazing, so we thought we'd try it. When we pulled up, we could tell immediately that is was, in fact, a biker's place....complete with LOTS of biker parking places. It was pretty dead, which didn't suprise us since it was Sunday. The service was great....and the food was AMAZING!!!!! The brisket I had was probably the best I've EVER had!!!! Definitely a place we'll go back to.Next stop: my favorite shopping spot. :) I love Sleepy's!!! One day, I will get a bear from here!!! I'm not a huge fan of yard ornaments, but I think these bears are super cute!!! Because we took the boat out all day Saturday, we decided to skip seeing The Passion. Its an outdoor production of the life of Christ. We'd really like to see it next time though. We drove up to the top of the mountain just to look around and to see the Christ of the Ozarks. Its really incredible. I do wish we had at least gone through their museum b/c they have a replica of the original Tabernacle. Next, we drove down the mountain and decided to take on Downtown Eureka. It was much less crowded and easy to get around today. It was actually enjoyable. We grabbed a few gifts for my parents and I needed some new candles. I love their little candle shop. :) The other thing we searched for was an "espresso sundae". We discovered these little treats in Minnesota the summer before we got married. They are INCREDIBLE! There are so many ice cream and coffee places in Eureka, we figured we would find one. After two stops, we were out of luck. At the last coffee place (Eureka Daily Roast), we decided to give up and just grab some coffee there. As Ken was waiting for them to brew a new pot of coffee, they brought us this yummy frozen drink! It was just a sample, but it sold me!!! I went up to order one and right in front of my face was a little sign that was advertising Espresso Sundaes!!!!! We couldn't believe they had them!!!! They don't have ice cream out displayed with their other treats, so we figured they didn't have any at all. They make sundaes with homemade vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce, then they pour fresh pressed (that they press themselves) espresso on top. Ken was in HEAVEN! :)













Final shot before heading out of town.
Just west of Eureka is Thorncrown Chapel. We just stopped by for about 30 minutes to take a few pictures and see the chapel. As we were heading out, we decided to take a little detour and drive around Beaver Lake. Ken had been there before to fish, but I'd never seen it. Its beautiful! So thankful that we had a little vacation this summer. It might be the only time that we get away during the summer months.

Summer Vacation 2011: Day 2

Saturday morning, I was the first one up. I had a cup of coffee and sat on our patio reading for a little bit. It was really pretty at first and then it got hot! We had decided to rent a boat for the afternoon, so we stuck around the house all morning. The property has a great walking trail that was right behind our house. We walked about 2 miles and it was a great way to start the morning!

After our walk, we headed into Holiday Island's town and had lunch at Geraldi's. Their pizza was wonderful!!! We split a pizza and a salad. It was perfect! We did get some good advice on pizza for the next time. We heard that Chelsea's is AWESOME (just a reminder for me when we go back)! After lunch, we went to the store and grabbed some fruit and water for lake. I made a few sandwiches, we changed clothes, and headed to the marina. Renting the boat was fabulous!!!! We loved every second of the 4 hours! It was hot and sunny and just perfect! We have decided that we are "boat-people"...and one day will be buying one. :) As we were heading back to the marina, we decided to kill the motor and just float for awhile...getting out to swim and just hang out for the last 45 minutes. However, when we tried to start the boat, it wouldn't start. Ugh! Thankfully, we were right by the marina and they came to save us. And, thankfully, it wasn't a big deal...the starter had just gone out. Easy fix and we headed back. It was a little embarrassing that we needed help, but a little humility is always a good thing...plus, they assured us that the starter does this sometimes and it was nothing that we did. But, still...

We went back to the house and got ready for dinner out. Ken loves catfish and I heard of this all-you-can-eat catfish place called Catfish Cabin. It was pretty good. Not his favorite, but still good. I had their grilled fish tacos and I LOVED them!!! It was a cute little place and everyone was really friendly. We were so tired from the day when we got home that we skipped the hot tub and watched a little TV before bed. I'm sad we didn't use the hot tub, but we'll definitely be back again. :)

Summer Vacation 2011: Day 1

For vacation this year, I was really wanting to take Ken back to Eureka Springs since Michelle and I had such a good time. I knew he would enjoy staying on the lake and the town is just so quaint. We weren't planning on taking our week-long trip until the fall, so we were definitely in need of a little get-away. This, to me, was a perfect place for us to go. (I have to throw in that this was really the first time I used tripadvisor for everything! It was such a handy tool...I encourage anyone who is traveling to check it out!!!).

We stopped in Tulsa to drop our "kids" off with my parents (Ruger and Lexis) and were on our way. Its really a pretty drive once you get into the mountains of Arkansas. Our first stop was lunch! We ate a late breakfast, but were ready for lunch by the time we got there. I had read some really great reviews of Caribe (they don't have a website, but you can see here for reveiws). They did not disappoint! We actually split two appetizers, the Jalapeno Pie and this salsa platter that comes with 7 salsas, homemade corn chips, and homemade flour tortilla strips. It was really good! I also had a margarita, which was probably the best I had the whole weekend. Definitely a place to return to. After lunch, we stopped at one of my favorite places, The Mud Street Cafe. Best coffee and desserts!!!!!!I wanted to show Ken around town like Michelle and I usually do. As we drove through downtown, he wasn't that impressed. Its small and overly crowded. He wasn't much for being out in the heat with all the people. Michelle and I went at the BEST time b/c school wasn't out and the lake crowd hadn't started coming yet. (My advice to anyone wanting to go is to plan your trip in May before school lets out or in September-November). I was a little disappointed by this b/c I love this little town. I tried to get us out of the crowds and took him up to The Cresent Hotel. We walked around a little bit to see everything and then ended up on the 4th floor at their balcony bar for a drink.

These pictures were taken at the chapel that sits right below the hotel. I love walking around this place b/c they have statues that play out the entire crucifixion of Christ.And, here is our view from the 4th floor balcony of the hotel. You can see the Christ of the Ozarks perfectly! After getting a feel for everything in town, we headed to Holiday Island where we would be staying. I never realized that it was its own little town...I just thought it was a neighborhood/golf community that was part of Eureka Springs. This was my 4th time to stay out here (for rental information click here and then click "accommodations" on the top right), but Ken's first. We rented a house that sat about 100 yards from Table Rock Lake. It was great! I think being out here was our favorite part of the trip!

This little guy was at the door to greet us when we got to the house. :) He was actually there every single time we came back to the house. Him and a little bunny. I named them George (the lizard) and Mertyl (the bunny). Once we got settled into the house, we walked around the property and then drove to the marina. We really wanted to rent a boat and talked to them about what they had to offer. We were excited to book one of their rental boats for Saturday afternoon!

One of our favorite things to do when we go somewhere is to drive around and get a feel for the place. We like to look at houses and the community. We spent quite a bit of the late afternoon wandering around Holiday Island.

For dinner, we went to another one of my favorites in Eureka Springs, The Garden Bistro (Again, no website, but here is the review page). This place has such great food...and I love that most of their ingredients are raised/grown right in Eureka Springs.After dinner, we were ready for some down-time. We headed back to the house, exhausted and ready for some TV and sleep!

5th Annual Girls' Trip

Its that time of year again. Michelle and I took our annual girls' trip. The is our 5th trip! Our first trip was actually to Eureka Springs and we decided to return there this year. We knew Jude was along for the ride this time, so we wanted to plan it before he was mobile. This trip came together pretty quickly! It was just perfect for us. Not too far away and perfect for relaxing. Here we are right before we pulled out of the drive.We arrived in Eureka Springs around 1:30pm. The place we wanted to eat lunch closed at 2:30pm, so we parked and headed that way. It was kind of sprinkling but the rain wasn't bad yet. We had a few hiccups getting to the place...but were so glad to finally find it. Its kind of hidden down some wooden stairs in between two buildings. When we walked in with a crying, hungry baby and a stroller...we were not greeted with open arms at The Oasis. Its a very small place...and I mean SMALL. I had read really good reviews about their food and especially their salsa. Its all fresh and mainly vegetarian. I was excited to try this little hole-in-the-wall (by the way they are only open for lunch). When we walked in, they said we couldn't have the 4-top table even though they closed in 45 minutes. We tried to pack all of our stuff into this little area, with Jude crying...and they finally said we could put the stroller in one of their closet areas. Michelle had to go to the bathroom, so I did my best to keep Jude distracted until she came back. He was instantly fine once he could eat. Poor thing (you'll see me say this again b/c he did not like working around our schedule when he was hungry. haha! Thankfully, he won't remember this trip...I'll just have to make sure I spoil him a lot so he likes me as he gets older). Once Jude stopped crying, the two ladies working there started being nice to us. The food was really good, but they were out of chips and salsa. Ugh! We were so disappointed. While we were eating it started POURING down rain, but it stopped right before we left. From here, we decided it was time to check into our house and "call it a day". Between the hiccups and the not so welcoming service, we were ready to just hang out and rest before dinner...especially since the rain was off and on all day.

We rented a house from The Holiday Island Motel and Resort Rentals (if you click on the link, click at top of the page where is says "accomodations". It will show you a list of all the houses they have available. I've stayed at 2 different houses (one twice) and they are so clean! Its definitely worth they stay! All of the houses compete with hotel/B&B prices. They sleep anywhere from 6-16 or 18. Its a great place to take families and friends. Some have tremendous lakeviews and other have hot tubs...and most have their own private deck. All have gas grills and completely stocked kitchens. LOVE IT! We stayed at "Leatherwood Drive 73-A if you want to look at it.). I didn't get many pictures, but as you will read, we didn't use much of the house besides the living room and kitchen. ha! We LOVED walking up the deck-walkway..and at night it was even lighted! It was great!!! We were so thankful to get here and get settled in for the weekend. The rain stopped at some point and we were ready to head into town for dinner. We called the place we had intended on eating at before we left, just to check their closing time. They weren't closing until 9pm, so we were good. However, after we got ready and were out the door, my cell phone rang. We didn't recognize the number and I had Michelle answer it since I was driving. It was the place we were headed (Cafe Amore). They were calling to tell us that they were really slow and they were closing early. They didn't want us to get there and find they were closed. How nice is that?!?!??!?!? I was so surprised and thankful they called. We ended up at The Local Flavor Cafe. We LOVED it! Wow! It was so good!!! Definitely a highlight! After dinner, we headed back to the house to settle in for the night...and watch some of our favorites. :)

This is what we do. Last year, we watched "Sex and the City" on our way to Ft. Worth and while we were there, we went to see the "Sex and the City 2". This year, I brought both movies and two of our favorite TV shows. We only watched "Dawson". :) We started it our first night, before and after dinner, and then it seriously played all. night. long. Yes, neither of us used the great rooms we had....we slept on the couches. Both nights. We are crazy. We got up around 9am, started the cofee, talked forever and watched "Dawson's Creek"! We did this until 1:30 or 2pm!!!! We wouldn't have gotten up, but we were starving!!! We knew we were going to eat out most of the time, so we didn't bring any food (except some champagne...which isn't food). It was time to head into town!We FINALLY got up and got dressed for the "day"...yeah, it was close to 3pm. haha! We had such a good morning though...it was hard to pull ourselves away. We had to grab some pictures before we left though.Our first stop was to EAT! :) We came across The Garden Bistro (they don't have a website, but you can click here and here or more info) and thankfully they were still serving lunch! They were out of their famous homemade bread, but the rest of the food was so good! They use fresh meat and vegetables from the community. All of it was really fresh and yummy! They had a great brie appetizer that we could have eaten as a meal!!! Plus, I had one of the best margaritas I've ever had here. OH SO GOOD!!!!!

Then is was time to SHOP! Now that we were out and about, we were a little disappointed that we had stayed at the house so long...but we needed the time to just girl-talk, so it was okay. Thankfully, there was an art festival going on and some of the stores were staying open longer than usual. We were excited to shop!!!One of the things Michelle and I have in common, is our love for photography and taking pictures. :) Our husbands don't share our passion like we do, so we definitely take advantage of every single photo opp we get! We made a trip up the hill to The Cresent Hotel. Its a really neat hotel and is considered haunted. Its a striking hotel and right below is a quaint and beautiful church. And from the church you can see the Passion of the Christ statue across the way.

It was now dinner time and we drove to Cafe Amore since we didn't get to eat there our first night. We split an appetizer, a pizza and took dessert home. It was such an inviting place! They were so sweet and flirted with Jude....and pizza was pretty fantastic! We really hadn't had a bad meal! We'd had a full day and were heading home for dessert, champagne and (you guessed it!) more "Dawson". (I'm pretty sure that when Michelle told her husband how much we watched of it, his reply went something like, "And, THAT is why you two need a girls' trip every year." hahaha!).Our last day, we actually got up at a decent hour. I think most of it had to do with being "checked-out" of our house by 11am. We went to brunch at The Local Flavor Cafe (dinner the first night was awesome, but we weren't too impressed with brunch. It was okay, but I wouldn't eat breakfast there again) and then hit a few more shops before we headed back. The two places that we were determined to go to were the Christmas store and "Sleepy's".

I LOVE LOVE LOVE that Eureka has a Christmas store that is open all year! I was able to buy Christmas ornaments for us this year. They have a HUGE selection and it made me want to buy all new decorations!!! AND....they even had some great OSU stuff! Next, we crossed the street to Sleepy's! They have some really cute stuff...but we mainly wanted the picture opp! ;) They have the BEST oversized "rocking" chair! Poor Jude. He didn't appreciate that we had things to do when it was feeding time...especially when it includes taking pictures. Is this something that all boys are born with....hatred of picture taking???? haha! He was such a good sport....but he does love his feeding time to be "on time"! :)After Sleepy's, we went to one of our favorite places, The Mud Street Cafe!!!! They have great coffee and the most AMAZING homemade desserts!!!! This time, we got some sandwiches "to-go" so we didn't have to stop on the ride home.

Everything about Eureka is so beautiful! Its a neat little town, but their is so much beauty there too! Everywhere you look is so scenic. I love that all the mom-and-pop places are locally owned and just work around their own schedules. If you do go, make sure to call places (especially for dinner) b/c they might just close early and head home. Because some of the places make their food everyday, there is a chance they will run out of certain things (salsa, bread, etc). Also, most places only take cash so make sure to take some. My last tip is that there is a Season that you should definitely go to Eureka. Its from May thru Christmas. The town shuts down after Christmas thru at least March, if not into April. Its a fantastic little get-away for honeymoons, romantic weekend trips, or just girl time (oh, and for some reason it brings in the bikers. Kinda weird, but they were all really, really nice).
Once Jude was fed and content again...and we had some yumminess to take with us, we hit a couple more stores and then headed back to Oklahoma. Michelle and I truly needed one more day on this trip. We really needed that first day to just girl-talk and watch "Dawson" and then a full day of shopping. Oh well, now we know for next year. :)

It was good to be home, but we do love our annual trip!!!Missed my baby for sure!!!!