Sweet husband

For my birthday, Billy gave me the sweetest present...he and Patrice's husband, Jeff, teamed up and sent us to The Homestead for a girls weekend for our birthdays, which are 2 weeks apart.  So fun!!  I was really surprised, since we weren't even doing presents this year at all, and what better present than to have a fun weekend away with one of my best friends!  Patrice and I met up in Richmond, where I left a car (thankfully it wasn't towed!), and we headed west to the wonderful resort. 

Hotel Tower

Grand Hall Lobby

Cozy Fireplace

View from our balcony...loved the snow!!

Still decorated for Christmas

"Hot Springs" pool outside of the spa

In lieu of a relaxing, luxurios massage or spa treatment, we grabbed our bathing suits and headed to The Jefferson Pools.  Now, we didn't have too much of an idea what to expect from this historic site, but we were definitely not expecting it to be in basically the same shape in which Thomas Jefferson enjoyed the pools :)  When we got dropped off by the shuttle driver, we felt like we had entered the scene of a scary movie, with the rundown building in the middle of nowhere.  The experience was well worth it though...we were laughing the whole time, and the pool was actually pretty relaxing.

We were a little scared pulling up to this place :)

Men and women have to soak separately (due to the "clothing optional" nature of the place...fortunately, everyone we were in there with had on a bathing suit - haha!)

Steamy pool area

Women's pool

Men's pool (we had to take this to show Billy and Jeff what they had missed out on :))

After getting back from our little excursion, we realized we had missed "tea time", so instead we opted for cocktails in the lobby...more fun than tea, I suppose!  We ate in the restaurant which we later decided was the kid-friendly place, but the food was still good, and we hung out in the President's Lounge afterwards for another cocktail. 

The next morning, we ate brunch in the Dining Room, walked around the resort, and visited by the fire in the Grand Hall lobby area.  It was such a fun weekend of relaxation, catching up, and having fun with a sweet friend!  Yay for our husbands' thoughtfulness (and for our wonderful friendship)!!  We're hoping this can be a yearly tradition :)