A great anniversary weekend

This weekend was the ten year anniversary of when Lincoln and I met. We had each planned surprise trips for the other but ultimately ended up going with Lincoln's plan. The weekend was a huge success.

Lincoln took me to a place called the Stonehedge Inn & Spa up in Tyngsboro, MA. The drive is only about an hour long so we weren't too far away from Jake who was staying home with Shani this weekend. We got a slightly late start because Lincoln didn't tell me we had to be somewhere at a specific time and so I chatted with Shani for a little while after she arrived. He had already determined that he forgot to figure lunch into our plans so we ended up having to eat on the road. We made a quick stop at McDonald's and had to eat in the car for which I teased him that we were off to a "romantic and luxurious start" to our weekend.

We arrived at the Inn exactly at 2 p.m. which was perfect since we had massages in the spa scheduled at 2:00 p.m. The spa was nice. It's fairly small with only 4 treatment rooms but when you walk in there was a hot tub and pool. The spa itself had a sauna and a steam room and of course the usual "quiet area" where you can sit before and after your treatments. The massages were very nice and after they were over we headed over to check in at the Inn.

The building is fairly old and very quaint. It has a lot of dark woods and rich carpeting. In fact it has a very "English manor" feel to it and even had a library with a wood fireplace, lots of old books, and a beautiful piano. The room keys were little blocks of wood with actual keys - not cards - and you turned your key in whenever you left unless you had a large purse to carry it in. It definitely wasn't something you could slip into your pocket. When Lincoln and I stayed at a hotel in London back in January 2000 they did the same thing except that time the key chain was a 14-inch metal rod....once again, not conducive to carrying around with you.

When we walked into the room I immediately walked into the bathroom to check it out. It was huge with a nice soaking tub (no jets but plenty big), a huge counter, and a separate room with the toilet. I was exclaiming over how nice the bathroom was when Lincoln said I hadn't even seen the best part yet.

I walked into the main room and there was a huge king-sized bed, two chairs, a dozen long-stemmed red roses, a bottle of champagne, and two champagne glasses. The best part was the fireplace! I've been telling Lincoln that I would love a fireplace in our house. When we stayed in Niagara Falls last April I had reserved us a fireplace suite but unfortunately due to a water leak on those floors we were moved into a different room without a fireplace.

When we got to the room we settled in, opened the champagne and just enjoyed sitting around in front of the fireplace for a little while. Lincoln went out to explore the grounds and when he came back we decided to take some magazines and head out to sit on a beautiful swinging bench in the garden in front of the Inn. We rocked on the swing, read our magazines, and chatted for awhile until it was time to go into dinner.

Dinner was in the hotel dining room and was very, very good. It was one of those restaurants where you don't know half the words on the menu, the highest priced bottle of wine sold for $5,400 and your food came in fancy little displays that you hated to cut into. I believe the wine menu was almost 50 pages long. The food was delicious and we only had the wine that was $11.50/glass instead of $5,400 for the bottle. I can live with that.

After dinner Lincoln ran out to the liquor store and got some more champagne (for me) and some beer (for him). We had a nice evening in the room and when I woke up before Lincoln the next morning I sat in front of the fireplace and read my book for awhile. A little while later we headed back down to the spa to sit in the hot tub. I also had made a second spa appointment for myself...this time for a sugar scrub...and afterwards we got dressed and went down to brunch in the hotel dining room before heading home.

The package that Lincoln had purchased for the weekend included the room, the two massages, the roses and champagne, dinner, and brunch. It was a great package and made for a very nice, and very romantic, weekend.

Well done honey.