Valentine Treats & The Herlong Mansion

On Friday, Annabelle and I made some Valentine treats.

Later that afternoon, when we'd finished and she'd had a good nap, my momma picked her up so she could spend the night with her & Pop.


That night DW & I were going over to the Herlong Mansion in Micanopy.
The mansion was built in 1845 and the original house was a pine "Cracker-style" house. The house was later bought by a young couple, the Herlongs. In 1910, the outside of the house was bricked and the columns were added to give it a "Southern colonial" feel. In the 1980's the house was turned into a bed & breakfast. It was recently featured in Southern Living magazine, so you may have seen it there!

My Father-in-law had invited us, along with DW's brothers and our sisters-in-law to join them for a night there. He'd made reservations for everyone a room and then once we got there, he told us where each of us would be staying.

All of the rooms were super nice, and DW and I scored the "Herlong Suite."

Our room (along with Adam & Lauren's) opened up onto the 2nd floor porch. If we had a 2 story house, a 2nd floor porch would be on my want list!

Speaking of my want-list.... I am in love with this "bed-swing" on the porch. I'd seen these before, and after swinging on it, I think I have DW convinced that we NEED one our front porch! I took detailed pictures of this beauty so that my Dad can make me one! My Mom & I do that EVERYWHERE....we fall for something then utter the all-familiar phrase, "Daddy could build that!" So this is definitely added to the want-list!

A couple more porch-pictures...

Me & My Valentine

My SIL, Lauren, & Me

After we all settled in our rooms, we went back downstairs and took over the dining room. No one else was in there, so we made ourselves right at home, moved the tables around and had some snacks. If there's anything we do when we're all together it's eat. We had also packed some games, and had a mad competition of Scattagories. We played teams and laughed our heads off. I hope we didn't disturb anyone there who were trying to have a nice romantic evening!

We've been on lots of "family vacations" and trips together, and it seems no matter where we go, there's always something funny (to us, so that could be questionable to others) that we come across. The Herlong was no exception. My personal favorite was this framed picture of one of the Herlongs in the hallway outside mine and DW's room.
The moment I saw it, I thought the man looked familiar. Then it hit me.... It's the FONZ!

Outside of Adam & Lauren's room, was a very extensive collection of walking canes. Every kind of cane you could imagine. Everything from a native American themed one to a hand carved rooster, to this bad boy....

Yep, it's a rattle snake head. There are hardly words... Ha!

Of course there was some beautiful antique furniture in the house and even some of the Herlong families' things... it was neat to see some of those...

The next morning we had breakfast together before taking a few pics and heading back home.
Here's the crew after breakfast...
It was a nice little Valentine treat from DW's Daddy and we all had a fun time.

~amw~