A Weekend in Review

This past weekend, my husband and I had the wonderful opportunity to celebrate our 5th anniversary in peace and quiet. We dropped off our son at grandma's and headed out to Mercersburg, PA, where we stayed at a lovely historic bed and breakfast called the Squire Smith Inn. It's owned by a friendly couple, who bought the place 5 years ago and renovated it to become a bed and breakfast. During the snowy season, they have many guest stay who like to ski at White Tail, but this past weekend, hubby and I were the only guests. Much to our surprise, they upgraded us to the biggest and most expensive room, free of charge. Beautiful king size four poster bed. Large windows with lace curtains. Down pillows that hug the sides of your face when you lay down. A crisp, clean bathroom, with pedestal sink and shower. They even had Andes mints on our pillows. And absolutely no television. Thank the Lord!!

We ordered the romance package that included the normal bed and breakfast deal, plus a box of decadent French chocolate truffles, which we devoured in 3 days, a fragrant bouquet of one dozen roses, and a dinner out at a local restaurant of choice.

When we arrived on Friday, we settled in and after chatting with the innkeepers, we headed out to have dinner at the James Buchanan Tavern and Inn. It's right down the street from our B&B, and has a most AMAZING New Orleans style Cajun food. It recently was adopted by new owners, who came to Mercersburg from, you guessed it, New Orleans. For an appetizer, we enjoyed a Chicken and Anduoille Sausage Gumbo sprinkled with white rice and a salad with an interesting dressing made of plain yogurt, garlic, lemon juice, and finely diced cucumber. Very refreshing. For our main fare, my husband enjoyed a bone in pork chop stuffed with a crab cake and I enjoyed crab cakes (WAY more crab than cake, yummy!). Each was served with roasted mashed potatoes and green beans. To top it off, we had their Black Raspberry and Strawberry swirled cheese cake. YUM-O!

After dinner, we decided to walk down to the Star Theater. This old theater used to show silent films way back, and now the owners have added a big screen and sound system, while preserving the charm, and created a movie theater. Can't beat seeing The Bee Movie for 5 bucks each, huh! And the movie treats were no more than 2 dollars.

On Saturday, we got to sleep in a little (the innkeepers asked if we wanted to), and woke up to a breakfast of fresh fruit, blueberry buckle, pancakes, and bacon. YUM! After breakfast, we, even though it was windy and cold, decided to go on the walking tour of Mercersburg. So many beautiful historic homes. And did you know that James Buchanan, the 15th president, grew up there? He was the only president from PA.

After our tour, we decided to go to Hagerstown, the nearest "big" city, have lunch, and go see another movie. Since we loved to see movies at least 2 times a month before we had our son, we wanted to see as many movies as possible this past weekend. So, we went to see the movie Enchanted, which was really cute and just plain fun. If I tried to explain it, this post would be WAY longer than it is already. After the movie, we did a little Christmas shopping and then headed back to get ready for dinner.

This was the evening that the inn was taking care of dinner. So, we decided to dine at Flannery's, an old Irish pub. It was great to had a 50 dollar tab waiting for us, so we were able to pick about anything on the menu. I had a spicy vegetable coconut curry and salad, while my husband had crab cakes served with this sinful ball of breaded and fried blue cheese mashed potatoes. I thought about ordering that as a side, but shuttered to think about how many calories was in that let alone how many I'd already consumed since arriving. For dessert, since we had money left over, we each ordered our own. I had a chocolate moouse truffle and hubby had an apple crisp. We decided to take home the pumpkin cheesecake. We didn't want to have to be rolled out of the restaurant. Ha!

After dinner, we headed up to the Mercersburg Academy to be filled with the music of Mercersburg Orchestra and Chorus. They performed a lovely group of pieces from Handel's Messiah, some Rachmaninoff, and some familiar and unfamiliar carols. It was so nice to listen to this beautiful music and be filled with the spirit of Christmas. It was also nice to just be together as a couple, something we don't get a whole lot having a toddler.

All in all, we had a fantastic, restful weekend. Something we'll probably do in 5 more years, perhaps sooner.