Winter Weekend

This has been on my calendar for months:

Ice Festival ~ February 17-20

I saw an advertisement for it back in the fall, and it sounded so dreamy somehow.

Then, we found out that our kids would be gone this weekend -- on a Winter Weekend Retreat with the Jr. High and Sr. High youth groups from church.  WooHoo - can you say "date weekend?"  I thought my sweet hubby and I would have a romantic evening walking around this local scenic town for their ice festival.  (If you know me well, you're probably already shaking your head because... I hate the cold.  On the other hand -- I'm a sucker for some good picture-taking.  See where I'm going with this?)

Friday night came.  We fed the kids dinner, and dropped them off at church.  We grinned at all of the other parents we knew who were dropping all of their kids off for the weekend (as we were), and headed out the door.  We had already made the decision to go to one of our favorite restaurants to use a Christmas gift-card.  When we arrived, we were told there was an hour-and-a-half wait.  We opted to wait only about 15 minutes or so, and grabbed a table in the bar area.  We enjoyed a wonderful dinner, and a little shopping.  In the back of my mind, I was thinking - "tomorrow: Ice Festival.  Afterall, I'll get better pictures during the DAY anyway, right?"

(to be continued...)