Leavenworth

Ryan tried to surprise me.  His downfall was mentioning to the kids that he had a secret that "we can't tell mom."  Maddie is incapable of keeping any kind of secrets.  She is a fount of information sometimes, much to the dismay of her sisters.  ("Mom, Emma has [contraband] in her room."  "Mom, Emma let us stay up late watching tv while you were on your date.")  Earlier this week, Maddie came up to my room while I was trying to convince myself I needed to get up, and told me that dad was going to take me on a trip for our anniversary and the girls were going to stay at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  

Ryan doesn't often try to surprise me.  He struggles with not telling me things.  I thought it was sweet, and didn't mention Maddie's blunder.

So Saturday morning, Ryan told me to get ready and pack for an overnight trip.  To Leavenworth!  So I got ready, got the kids packed, got me packed and we were off.  We dropped off the girls at their grandparents, found them some food for lunch, told them to be good and helpful (and hopefully Grandma and Grandpa will be back from Moses Lake soon....), and Ryan and I were off.

We arrived in Leavenworth, parked at our hotel but didn't check in, and wandered around the shops.  (This trip was clearly planned with me in mind.  Ryan does not choose to window shop at knick knack stores ever.)  We had snack at a Danish pastry shop.

 And this is a bad photo of the mural on the wall at the pastry shop.

 Once it was 4 o'clock, we checked into our room.  We got the honeymoon room.  It was a gorgeous room with a pretty fancy four poster bed.

 Our room included as many rounds of miniature golf across the street as we wished to play.  We played one round on the hardest mini golf course I've ever played on.

I lost my ball in one of the ponds, and Ryan was a gentleman and fished it out for me.  It was a pretty course.

We checked out the evening entertainment at the town gazebo.  The Funky Chicken played on the accordion is memorable.  

 We had dinner at a German restaurant.  This is how they served us our bread.  Hi-yah!

 So, so yummy.

This is my dinner, complete with sauerkraut.  I've never had sauerkraut before.  It wasn't bad.  I am clearly past caring what I will smell like post-dinner.  I guess Ryan and I have moved into the "old married couple" territory.

 And headed back to our hotel.

 I enjoyed the snuggly bathrobe while we were waiting for the jaccuzzi to fill up.  The jaccuzzi that was in the middle of our room.

 The next morning found us enjoying the fanciest breakfast I've ever had.  There were made-to-order omelets, "homemade" pastries, and lots of other European specialties.  This is the view of the "Bavarian" mountains from the breakfast room on the 4th floor.  Also one of the rooms on the 2nd floor was ours.

 Our morning meal was accompanied by a cute old man wearing short pants and playing his Alphorn.

 We played another round of miniature golf, and then checked out.  I took a few pictures of the fancier parts of the inn that I liked.

 Then we raced back to accompany our children to church with their grandparents.  Kim's gallbladder needs to be removed, and she's not feeling her best.  It meant that our little get-away was just under 24 hours, but at least we got it.

You can tell the kids were well-rested and thrilled to be coming home- here's Maddie throwing a fit.

Annie lost her tooth while we were gone.  She brought it home so the tooth fairy could pay her a visit.