Tea at the Huntington Rose Garden

“There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.”
― Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

Another birthday, another tea party.

For my birthday last year, I wanted to spend another afternoon dressing dapper and attending an afternoon tea. I invited some close friends, my mother and my grandmother, as they hadn’t been to a tea room before and wanted to try it.

I have found that there are several tea room and afternoon tea experiences around Southern California if you use Google to find them. Price ranges and experiences differ depending on the location, obviously; I’d like to venture out and visit all of them.

This time around, I found that The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino (near Pasadena, California) has a Tea Room dining experience in their Rose Garden promising “an elegant and memorable experience inspired by the tradition of English tea service with a distinctive California twist”.

I made reservations through OpenTable and started thinking about outfit ideas for the day.

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A Beginner’s Guide to Adventuring

Adventure is worthwhile. –Aristotle

At the beginning of this year, I made a personal resolution to myself to start blogging again. While I took some time here and there to change how my blog looked, including creating and totally scrapping 4 different layouts, color schemes and font setups,  2016 slipped away from me and when December rolled around, I realized that I hadn’t made a single new blog post.

Then January came and went.

February popped in for a hot second.

I blinked and March was over.

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Megan & Kate’s UK Adventure

My lovely readers,

I have been bit by the travel bug.

I’ve recently returned from a trip to Scotland and Ireland with Kate. She has been traveling around these past few months (and you should check out her travel blog); this whole trip actually came up from her basically telling me to come to Scotland because she would be there and we would have more fun adventures together.

Who would turn down an opportunity like that?

(Hint: Not Me.)

I booked my flights way back in May and then kept a close eye on my spending to save up for the activities we would undoubtedly be doing on the trip. I packed a duffel bag so it would be easier to carry around and got a good travel day backpack from REI. I made sure that my passport was valid (and it is until 2022 which has me planning all sorts of adventures in my head now) and triple-checked my essentials before I left.

I brought a journal with me to chronicle every little details. Having a journal is a nice way to look back on my travels and see how my thoughts have changed or to have those words bring back those memories for me. (It also is convenient because I basically have several blogs posts already written out for me).

Therefore, most of these upcoming blog posts are going to be taken straight from my journal, with historical background additions and tons and tons and tons of pictures. (I took like 500.) Anything in italics are current thoughts and musings on what I decided to write in the moment.

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The Lakehouse

My first vacation of Summer 2016 consisted of a week at Lake Norman with my family.

Like my whole family.

My Uncle Bud, Aunt Monica and cousins Buddy and Katelyn all live in North Carolina. My parents and my Teah-Teah flew out first. They were joined by my Uncle Mike, Aunt Megan and cousins Lauren and Gillian, who were visited Washington D.C beforehand. Then my brother and I flew out a few days later. We were joined by Buddy’s fiance Meghan and Katelyn’s boyfriend Dallas sporadically throughout the week.

That’s 15 people in 1 house.

It was one of the best vacations I have had in a very long time.

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An Afternoon Tea Party at Disneyland

Back in January, the Disney Parks Blog announced that the Disneyland Hotel was going to start hosting Afternoon Tea on weekends. Naturally, as a Disney fanatics and newly dubbed tea party connoisseurs, Shelby, Jen and I were dying to try it out.

I decided that an afternoon tea at Disneyland was how I wanted to spend my birthday this year. Jen booked a 12:25 reservation and soon the anticipation set in.

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Tea for Three

Another birthday. Another tea party adventure.

Last year for Shelby’s birthday, we went for tea at Madeline Garden Bistro and Venue in Pasadena. We had such a fun time (seriously, who wouldn’t want to dress up cute and have a tea party??) that we decided to do it again this year.

This time, our destination was the Mission Inn Hotel and Spa in Riverside.

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Family Traditions are my favorite thing about the Holidays

The holidays are my favorite time of year. My family comes together and we enjoy each others’ company and continue the traditions that I have known my whole life.

My immediate family on my mother’s side is gigantic. My mother is the oldest of four, and everyone has their spouse and two children. One of my cousins is also married and has two children. So when we get together for the holidays  (or someone’s birthday or just a family dinner), you’re talking about 19 people, depending on who can come.

On Thanksgiving and Christmas, my extended family gathers to celebrate. This includes several Aunties and Uncles and Cousins, and Second Cousins, and Third Cousins, and Fourth Cousins, etc. etc.

In short, lots of people, lots of food and lots of good memories.

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The D23 Expo is my Comic-Con

The bi-annual D23 Expo was held at the Anaheim Convention Center this year in August. The D23 Expo is the Disney version of Comic-Con. It has panels and booths and tons of merchandise. It is the ultimate event for anyone who is a Disney fanatic.

I went to the last D23 Expo in 2013, right after I was hired at Disneyland. When tickets went on sale for Cast Members this year, I snatched up some for myself, Jen, Nate and Shelby, and immediately put in requests to have the weekend off.

To my surprise and utter relief, I got all of the days off that I had requested and enjoyed a fun-filled, sleep-deprived whirlwind weekend of everything Disney.

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Try the Grey Stuff (it’s delicious!)

Last week, I invited my friends Jen and Nate over for dinner. Because we share a love of all things Disney-related, we decided to frame our dinner around the song “Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the Beast.

I even went so far as to look up the lyrics to see what sort of food we could attempt to cook. One of the main verses in the song is as follows:

Beef ragout
Cheese souffle
Pie and pudding “en flambe”

Boom, dinner planned.
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For my birthday, my Dad gave me a hug

On my 25th birthday, as I was getting ready to head out for the day, my Dad knocked on my door.

When I gave him permission to enter, he slowly opened the door with a cheeky grin and said, “Happy Birthday!”

He wrapped both of his arms around me and gave me a hug. I hugged him back and closed my eyes and held onto the moment.

For my 25th birthday, my Dad gave me a hug and it was the best present ever.

Because a little over three years ago, my Dad had a stroke.

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