Jess Baldwin's Wedding in Eureka Springs

The whole family headed out on a road trip to Eureka Springs, Arkansas for the wedding of one of my dearest college friends, Jessica Baldwin. She married Adam Rogers, and they seem so perfect for each other. Here's a picture of Jess, Adam, and Jess' adorable son Thompson.

Eureka Springs is a quaint town built on a hill with a long street full of boutique shops that wind all the way up the hill. It's really pretty neat. At the top of the hill is the famous old Crescent Hotel, where the wedding was and where we stayed. It's famous because it's considered the 2nd most haunted hotel in the entire country! Larkin might have sensed something because at one point she threw a fit and refused to sleep in the hotel. We slept there fine, but it made us do a double take on the whole place.

The night of the rehearsal dinner they took everyone on a tour of the haunted hotel. The hotel is famous for "orbs" that show up only in pictures, and they move (i.e. they're not there in every picture and will be in different spots of pictures). I caught a number of orbs and I'm serious when I say, we believe that something different was going on there. It's too erie to be purely made up. The first pic below shows some of the orbs. The second picture, if you look closely is of a wall of the hotel as seen in a mirror. Do you see the face of a Saint Bernard dog? Supposedly, a Saint Bernard dog used to live in that particular apartment. But the surprising thing is it's just a normal wall like the rest of the walls in the hotel. It was kind of amazing. We saw a lot more, including the #2 lockers that were featured in an episode of "Ghost Hunters". This gives you a taste of what it was like though. I truly believe it is haunted.

And here are pictures of the wedding. It couldn't have been a more perfectly beautiful day. The ceremony and reception were lots of fun and there were tons of other kids that Larkin was able to play with.

After the ceremony, we stepped into the garden to take a few family photographs.

Finally, from the top of the hotel, you can see way off in the distance, and way out there is this amazing statue. It's breathtaking to see - it's really huge - and it totally reminds me of Cristo Redentor in Rio de Janeiro. It was spiritual to see it, I was really impressed.

It was a great weekend in Eureka Springs and I'm so happy for Jess and Adam! Congratulations!