If you’ve had a chance to take a look at my Flickr pictures for Christmas 2008, you can see that we did some traveling. First, we went to San Antonio on Christmas Day to spend time with my in-laws.

From there, we went to a family reunion for my side of the family at a lake house in Buchanan Dam, Texas. We stayed there for 3 1/2 days and had tons of food! It was fun to spend that much time with my niece, Natali:

Since our 3 year anniversary was December 23, we tacked our anniversary celebration onto the end of the family traveling. We had a few ideas, one was to go back to Dallas and catch a plan to one of the Travelocity Last Minute Package locations. But since we were already in South Texas, we decided to just head on over to Fredericksburg because we’ve heard so much about it.

It is definitely a fun little town to visit – we were there for 2 days. We especially loved Appian Way guest house, Oliva, where we stayed. We booked it through 1st Class Bed & Breakfast. It was a one room log cabin with a front and back porch, far enough out that we could see plenty of stars from the private hot tub on the back porch. Every night, 7 deer would come by.

If you’ve ever been to Fredericksburg, you know that the main attraction is just walking up and down Main Street, going into shops. One of the shops I had heard of before, Bath Junkie. They had one in Branson, MO when we traveled there this summer, but we didn’t have time to visit.

Here’s an exerpt from their site explaining what they do:

Each product from Bath Junkie’s wide selection—including phosphate-free bubble bath, mineral-oil free moisturizers, talc-free liquid powder, exfoliating salt scrub, spa tub-safe bath crystals, alcohol-free body mist, SLS-free shower gel, head-to-toe body wash and conditioners, anti-bacterial handwashes, and a full line of pet products—are custom-blended right in the store to customers’ specifications.

With 200 fragrances to choose from, customers can create their own dream blend (gardenia and watermelon? We won’t judge) or for the easily overwhelmed, fragrance menus of favorite blends are available. Customers can also select their products’ tints, allowing them to simply choose a favorite color or create the perfect match for their bathroom’s color scheme.

This fit right in with my recent experimentation combining essential oils with unscented lotions. I have been doing this for a few months. The difference here is that they had a lot more scents available than my own measly collection of 2 essential oils (those things are expensive!).

I created a lotion (no coloring for me) with mandarin orange, french vanilla, and amber. I love it! I would definitely consider going back. The site says there is a location in Dallas, although I am not sure if it is a corporate office or a store. Here’s a picture I snapped of one of the employees creating a bath scrub for someone: