5th Anniversary Get-away

This past weekend, Greg and I spent a glorious 3 days in Lake Geneva without the kids to celebrate our 5th anniversary.  You'd better sit down with a mug of hot cocoa for this post, as it's a long one and I'm going to absolutely relish reliving the weekend. :)

We stayed at the Grand Geneva resort, which we would recommend to absolutely anyone...couples, families, friends...it is an amazing place.

The landscaping was pretty, too, though I'm sure in the summer it's even more impressive.

In the back of the resort, the walls are almost all like this:  stone and covered in ivy.  It was so pretty and gave it an old, distinguished feel, even though the inside was all very modern and nice.

I'll spare you the pictures of our room, with the exception of this:

It's not just a bathroom mirror....

It's a bathroom mirror with a TV in it!  I wasn't sure whether to laugh or roll my eyes. :)

Our room had a balcony, and this was our view...the pretty lake and a nice golf fairway (and a couple of sand traps).

We got to Lake Geneva on Friday afternoon and spent some time getting the feel for the resort (and figuring out where everything was!)  The place was pretty big, so it took me a little bit.  Once we had our bearings, we drove into the town of Lake Geneva (conveniently located about 3 minutes away) and ate at a place called Sopra.  It.  Was.  Amazing!  We had their duck flatbread, which had apple butter, duck breast, brie cheese, and cherry preserves on it.  I'm sure my dad thinks that sounds hideous, and I would have thought that not too long ago, too. :)  I'm glad I gave it a chance, though, as it was about the best thing we ate all night!  Greg had some blackened tilapia and I had chicken, spinach, and smoked mozzerella gnocchi (a dumpling-like pasta). Topped off with a ginger pear tart for dessert, it was definitely a five star meal.

I would love to eat there again!

Anyway, after supper we went back to the Grand where we enjoyed the indoor pool and hot tub (I especially enjoyed the hot tub...it seems that in the past I've always been pregnant and not able to sit in them!) and then went to bed.  We knew that Saturday would be a big day...starting out with the zipline canopy tour!  Needless to say, I was more than a little nervous (remember me and the Arch?).

We got to Lake Geneva Canopy Tours in plenty of time, and I was glad.  Eventually we met our guides, Tom and John, and started to gear up.

Yay!

Lookin' good...I told Greg he'd better be RIGHT by me on the rope bridges.

All ready to go!

Our first stop was 'ground school,' a zipline that was about 5 feet off the ground.  We learned how to sit in the harness, brake, and self-rescue (which just means pulling yourself to the end).  I passed! :)

Here I go!  There were 8 ziplines in all, as well as 5 'sky' bridges (rope bridges) and 3 circular staircases.

These were kind of neat, just a little dizzying as you walked around the tree.

These, however, were not my favorite.  I could handle the trees swaying as I stood in them, but the bridges were worse.  I know I was hooked on at all times, but I was sure I was going to slip and one of my legs go shooting out the sides or something.  It was all very pretty, though.

Their longest zipline is called The Beast, and is 800 some feet long.  I have a video of Greg coming down that one (videos will be their own post).  If you look in the middle of the next picture, you can see Greg (orange shirt) getting ready to zip.

If I remember right, this was the highest zipline...the tree Greg is in is called Big Ben and is 75ish feet above the forest floor.

Here he comes!

John very kindly took this picture of us at the end of the tour.  We are standing on the top tower of their racing ziplines.  Unfortunately, it was super windy on Saturday and they weren't running them.  The racing ziplines are 1200 feet or something like that, and you can get up to speeds of 50 mph.  (The Beast can get you up to 35 mph, but none of the other lines come even close, I don't think.)  Overall, the tour was not near as scary as I thought it would be, and I would do it all again in a heartbeat. :)  Oh, one thing I'd do differently:  NOT tighten my helmet too much.  I got a headache about 2 ziplines into the tour, but figured it was nerves, lack of a good breakfast (I had 2 granola bars and an apple), vertigo from the swaying trees, etc.  By the end it was pretty bad, and it occurred to me to try loosening my helmet.  It helped a little, but not totally.  At the end, I took off my helmet, and within 10 minutes the headache was totally gone.  I was pretty annoyed at myself.  Live and learn!

After our adventure, I was super hungry.  We headed back in to Lake Geneva and ate at Sprecher's.

Greg had their root beer and I tried their 'Puma Kola,' which I thought tasted mostly like honey.  It was interesting, but I can't say it was my favorite.

We also had their chili nachos.  Oh, yum.

It was nice and sunny, which helped the wind not be so cold, so we walked along the lake for a bit and then went through some of the shops.

Lake Geneva

Any town with touristy shops has a candy store, and this was no exception.  At Kilwin's, they even had chocolate dipped Twinkies and rice krispie treats!

After wandering around the town, we went back to the lodge where I took a nap (it felt amazing!) and then we went for a run/walk on some nearby nature trails.  I am doing the couch to 5K program and Greg was nice enough to jog along with me.  Only on week 4 right now, but I can tell that I'm improving, which is nice. :)  After our exercise, we found a sweet hammock in the back of the lodge and relaxed for a bit, then enjoyed the outdoor patio and snooped on some golfers and even a wedding! :)

For supper we ate at the Red Geranium, which had a super yummy smokey tomato bacon dressing.  Greg also had prime rib, while I had something called chicken angelina.

Their desserts looked so good that we couldn't decide between their flourless chocolate truffle cake or their lemon zest cake.  Our waitress, once finding out that we were celebrating our 5th anniversary, surprised us by giving us one free!

After supper we went back to the lake shore for a carriage ride!  It was really fun...we had the carriage to ourselves since it was 8:30 at night, and our driver was fun and even had a huge fuzzy blanket for us since it was pretty cool out.

Awwww. :)

Once back at the hotel, Greg REALLY wanted to see if the outdoor hot tub was open...he had seen it earlier in the day and said, "Oh, that's the best...we need to do that tonight."  Me, being the wimpy one, didn't think that wearing a swimming suit outside at ALL sounded fun, but I gave in.  There were two other couples out there already, one celebrating their 30th anniversary and one celebrating their 9th.  Earlier, we had seen the woman of the 30th ann. couple swimming in the big outdoor pool and figured the water must have been heated.  After talking to her, we found out it definitely wasn't!  Here are some pictures of the pool, though, just to help you understand what happened next...

Pretty blue

Interesting peach and green

Scary red

It was a 'Vegas style' pool with colored fountains and lights that colored the pool water.  It did look really pretty as we watched the colors change from the hot tub.  I knew it was going to happen, but Greg said he was going to jump in the big pool.  He did, and even though I knew the water was freezing, I was a bit envious of him swimming in the colored water.  Sooooo, after the other couples left and Greg did a bit of convincing, I jumped in, too.  (And nearly drowned because the cold water took my breath away!)  It was fun, though. :)

On Sunday morning we listened to our wedding service CD since we had our laptop along.  I think it's the first time we've re-listened to it without kids around (well, maybe on our first anniversary we did), so we could actually pay attention!  Afterwards we ate breakfast at the Grand Cafe in the resort (yummy Belgian waffle and omelet) and drove back to Lake Geneva to check out the boat tours.  Anytime we asked someone local what we needed to see/do in Lake Geneva, they always mentioned the boat tours.  We opted for the one hour Geneva Bay tour to see some of the estates along the shore.

Lady of the Lake, our ride for the tour

Hot chocolate!  We needed it...we sat in the front of the top deck, and it was very, very, very windy and pretty cool.

Some of these houses were just amazing.  Many Chicago businessmen had/have summer homes along the lake.  At one point in time, the Wrigley family had an estate that took up a mile of the coastline!

I don't remember the history of all these houses...these were just some of the more impressive ones.

This one I remember a little bit of...after whatever family that built it sold it, the endeavors launched in it were plagued by money troubles.  Condos, a Catholic school for girls, and most memorably, a failed Christmas tree museum all tried their hand.  I think now it might be a lawyer's firm, at least on the bottom floor.

The tour was the perfect length for us, as we had to go inside by the heater near the end to warm up.  We meandered around town a little bit and then went back to our van...perfect timing, as you can see!

Our time ran out just after Greg snapped the picture. :)

After the boat tour, we drove to nearby Williams Bay to check out the Yerkes Observatory.  It's kind of a long story, but we had thought there was a chance we'd be able to go there Saturday night and look through their huge telescope.  Alas, it didn't work out.  The building itself was really neat, though.

That big dome contains their telescope with the largest refractor in the world (at least according to their website).

We spent the afternoon just relaxing at the hotel, which was so nice and quiet since most of the weekend guests had left.  For supper we decided on the Geneva Chop House, another restaurant in the hotel.

First, a self-timed picture of us on our balcony

as well as the forty or so Canadian geese enjoying the vacant golf course.

This was probably the 'finest' restaurant we ate in, and of course it's the one we snapped pictures in, too.  We felt mildly conspicuous, but there weren't too many other people around, so I don't think we ruined anyone's meal.

When I had called to make our reservations, the man on the phone asked if we were celebrating anything.  I told him we were here for our 5th anniversary, but didn't think much of him asking at the time.  When we got there and they sat us at our table, it had rose petals on it!  When our waitress approached the table she was carrying two glasses of complimentary champagne as well!

I thought it was very sweet.

At Sopra, Greg had seen tuna tartare on the online menu, but was disappointed when it wasn't on the menu at the restaurant.  Imagine his delight (and my apprehension) when it was on the Chop House menu!  On the left is the actual tartare: raw tuna with avocado and fried wontons to eat with it.  On the right is tuna that has a light sear on it, but is raw on the inside.  Greg liked the left side better, I liked the right.  :)

I got the crab legs for my meal.

Greg got the filet and couldn't decide which sauce to try, so our very accommodating waitress brought him all 5!  The funniest thing is that after trying each of them, his favorite way to eat the steak was by itself with a little piece of mushroom.  Go figure. :)

Like I said earlier, the resort had emptied out, so supper was pretty quiet and very relaxing.  As you can see in the next picture, we entertained ourselves with the rose petals.  After finishing our entrees (oh, we also had roasted sweet potato, creamed spinach which I didn't eat, and asparagus with a cream sauce), our waitress brought us a plate of dessert to celebrate our anniversary.

Carrot cake and turtle cheesecake....so yummy.  And I love her handwriting!  I wish I could write like that with a pen, much less in chocolate!  It was a delightful meal.

Outside the Chop House is this mural of the resort.

After supper we sat out by the fire briefly, as it was pretty chilly.  We ended up going back out to the hot tub (had it to ourselves this time!) and Greg jumped in the cold pool once.

Monday morning we took some more pictures of the resort and got on the road by 8:30ish.

Peaceful.

The lovely hammock we used on Saturday

We were going home via Bolingbrook to pick something up at IKEA for a friend, and still felt so stuffed from the weekend we ended up at a McDonald's for lunch. :)

I think the kids were excited to see us, though Tirzah wasn't too sure at first and when we showed up at Dad and Mom Beutel's, the two older kids didn't want to leave (of course) even though they'd been whining for us the day before. :)

Once we were all home as a family again, Greg and I gave Max and Nora our surprises from the weekend.

"Close your eyes, Max and Nora!"

I LOVE the expressions on both their faces.

"Hmmm, Nora....maybe Dad and Mom should go away more often so they can bring us back stuff like this!"

Ohhhh, my little Max....I could not agree with you more. :)