Makin' Lemonade

Mother Nature handed my husband and me a few lemons this past weekend; actually a whirlwind of them we begrudgingly are referring to as "Irene".  Our fabulous plans to celebrate 10 years of marital bliss together in NYC (sans kids) came to a screeching halt when Hurricane Irene decided to encourage Amtrak to cancel their schedules and the city to be cleared out.


Babysitters were in place, so not willing to give that up, we moved on to Plan B: make lemonade. 

Destination: Lancaster, PA. 

Pretending to be in Manhattan, we only went to new places we hadn't yet discovered - here are some highlights.

First stop; lunch at "The Brickyard".  Great food, great beer, great service and a supercool jukebox that looks like a giant i-phone in the bar.  Note for future trips: bring the kids, they eat free w/adults.  They may change that policy once they see how much our kids can consume. Scary.

Second stop: An amazing new "go to" place for must have decor (and gifts for people we really like) Radel & Stauffer http://www.radelstauffer.com/aboutus.html. 
Throughout our wonderful and personalized tour of the store, the co-owner Daryl, took notes on everything I oohed & ahhhed over and handed the list to my husband on our way out as a ready to go Christmas list.  Gotta love that kind of customer service.  Did I mention their outstanding "Alessi" collection?

Next stop: Details on Queen St. http://www.detailsandpappagallo.com/  Wonderful boutique for home accessories, stationery, candles, etc.  Pappagallo is their trendy clothing store, which I'd been to before and didn't drag my husband into.  I can get in more trouble without him there.

Home for the evening was the contemporary and eclectic "Lancaster Arts Hotel":



This unique art-filled boutique hotel is definitely a (the) hidden hot spot in Lancaster County.  With just 63 rooms, the historic building is intimately set with over $300k worth of artwork by 36 different local artists.  The building was originally built in 1881 and the hotel architects should be showered with praise on how they maintained the building's integrity and brick walls while converting it from a tobacco warehouse to the hotel.  The rooms feature individual artist's work with descriptions and biographies, a sketchbook for guests to doodle on, a wonderful book describing this and other historical hotels, handcrafted furniture and the most comfortable hotel bed we've ever slept on.  And that's been quite a few. Seriously, seriously comfortable.

Sadly I didn't bring my camera, so all pics shown are from their website and don't do the angles, the artwork, the architectural design justice.  The nice staff did promise me entry to photograph the hotel anytime I want, so I will be back.  Check out these uber-cool & comfy chairs in the lobby:

After a romantic dinner next door at Lancaster's trendy "Fenz" restaurant, we wandered/teetered back and enjoyed a few spirits at the Arts Hotel's swanky bar:



Overall, we couldn't have asked for more memorable lemonade. 

Happy Anniversary Honey!

You say tomato...and I say "is it?"

Look at these little beauties found recently at the

neighbor's produce stand...teeny tiny "pea-sized" tomatoes. 

So cute, so adorable and so yummy!

I've been throwing them into tacos, pastas & salads -

adding to veggie sides and eating them one at a time. 

Just too cute not to feature on the blog.

To give more perspective, this is one sitting pretty 

next to a little spice jar.  Sure glad I'm not the lucky girl picking them. 

They grow like any other tomato, not in clumps,

so lots of picking one after another, after another, after another...