Holiday Luncheon with The Ayres

A couple weeks ago myself and my office was invited to a Christmas Luncheon at The Ayres Hotel and Suites. We do lots of business with them and are very happy with the customer service and hospitality that this hotel gives to us.

They have this every year. They welcome their business associates to come over for a nice lunch and raffle and holiday festivities. This year they had a Funny Santa come in and crack jokes and sing songs.

 They then had everyone go into the dining room where they had a pretty nice spread available

 I stocked up on a lot of stuff

 It was like a Thanksgiving style meal. The food was pretty darn good.

 They did a raffle during the dining..one of my guys here won a big basket full of baking supplies

 Santa Sung some funny songs and did a comedy routine then he was gone

 I ate pretty much this whole plate

and the bread pudding was Delish with my coffee afterwards. What a fantastic time.

Discovering with the kids...

A couple weekends ago we decided on a ordinary Sunday to take the kiddos to the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana (i Think) They were having a Star wars exhibit there.

 Since it is December after all they had a gingerbread house exhibits as well..I like this beachy one!

 We went up to participate in the Gingerbread Derby

 The kids got to walk through a line picking out what tasty items to make their gingerbread cars from. Gabe help Parker with his with the peanut butter cup tires..Mine well AVA's was a double wide car with Ritz cheese sandwich tires

 Once the cars were done it was time to race them...Parkers kept coming in first

 He raced a few times

 After the Derby they raced Jawbreakers..I am sooo surprised Ava did not try to eat them.

 Lots of gingerbread star wars themed stuff there

 This was one of the few At-At's

 Ava watching the tornado maker thingy

 She wanted to climb the rocks as well

 We went to let the kids play in the dinosaur area..Parker did a dinosaur bone hunt while Ava just ran around and played with the dinosaur puzzle

 It was a preety day..

 Ava loved the slide of course and the caves

 They did a few laps on the big dinosaur

 Look Ava it's a Sara!!

 Back inside cause we had plenty more to see..This blew crazy wind at you and you had to balance these wings..

 Then Parker got to fly this plane..all 4 of us even went in a wind tunnel where the speeds got to almost 80mph!! I wish I had a picture of that..it actually kinda scared me.

 We made it just in time for the last Sugar Cookie decorating event. I helped Ava make her cookie

 Parker was concentrating on just how he wanted his

 Ok Ava you can eat it now

 Parker made his like a wreath...they sure looked tasty..I love sugar cookies!!

 In the big planet room

 Gabe has got the world in his hands!!

 So does Ava

 Ava kept having to go back to play with the big lego blocks..she LOVED them.

and of course Parker had to lay in the bed of nails. We even got to watch a 4d movie about dinosaurs in the theater..( mental note..never have Ava wear her Sketchers Twinkle Toes in a dark theater)
The kids were so Pumped after we left. They both had such a blast that I think we are going to become members so we can check out all the different exhibits they plan throughout the year. It was such a fun and inexpensive family day!

A Vintage Tea experience

It has been Loooong overdue since I met up for tea with any of the girls. It is hard to get everyone together this time of year with all the holidays. My dear friend Felicia and I made sure to meet up for some tea time. She makes awesome custom made one of a kind jewelery with stones and for my birthday she is making me a custom ring with a tear drop shaped Rose Quartz in black wire that I picked out. ( I cannot wait to see it)

We usually have been going to Elise's Tea Room but we thought we would try The Vintage Tea Leaf in Long Beach.

This place is a lot higher in price than Elise's but you really pay for an experience here.

 When you come in you enter through their gorgeous gift shop filled with very dainty items. On the back wall there is a HUGE shelf FULL of vintage tea cups. First part of your tea room experience is choosing a tea cup. This is a picture of ONE side

 and here is the other side.

 Next there is a closet FULL of hats to choose (if you would like)

 More hats!!

 We got seated by the window and the chairs are Huge Cushy Victorian ear vintage chairs. I had to stuff some pillows under mine...it was kinda lop sided LOL. Felicia ordered a Apple Spice Jazz tea..I believe it is a blend of apple spice and Jasmine.

 This is my cup I picked out..I choose this one cause it reminded me of the tea cup ride at Disneyland

 I choose a tea called Berries in Snow. It was fresh brewed berries in a White tea. It was so insanely tasty. I loved every drop of it!

 Mixing my lumps of sugar. There was soo much to look at inside this place. They have some really cool events coming up too like a huge tea brunch with Santa Claus. The menu is a fun one for the kiddies. I am so tempted to take my little Ava.

 I ordered the soup Luncheon which included a pot of tea, 2 scones (cranberry eggnog and Mandarin) a bowl of Soup ( tomato artichoke Bisque) and 2 tea sandwiches ( California avocado and black bean and artichoke and cream cheese on a croissant). Felicia had the social tea with scones. The scones were delicious just as the devonshire cream and lemon curd. My soup was AMAZING (must get recipe) I was sooo full after eating it though..I went into a total food coma!

 cute window display. We spent about 3 hours there just relaxing and chatting. It was a very nice time.

Terry..the man at the counter took this photo of us before we left. After my departure I went and did some thrift store shopping and later that night Gabe and I went to the Saturday night event at Di Piazza's for the CnP scooter rally which i just discovered I took 0 pictures of!!!! It was a busy day..thankfully I had all that tea to keep me going on the rest of the day.

Free Day Friday

I love that my job gives me the Friday after Thanksgiving off. As much as I just wanted to lay around and do nothing I knew I had to get out and do SOMETHING. Parker was really intrigued about thee whole Black Friday thing so since Gabe was using my car to go to work on Friday I got the kids ready and on the bikes we rode to the Mall.

 Ava was excited about going bye bye on the bike. I LOVE my Wee RIDE chair. She sits right in front of me and the handle bars. She loves to sing when I ride the bike and say hello to EVERYONE and Good BYE to everything we pass by..I kept her little hand waving and hearing Bye Bye Red Truck, Bye Bye Kitty, Bye Bye Trees, Bye Bye house etc... It's pretty funny actually.

 After going to a few stores and doing a little xmas shopping Parker really wanted to go upstairs to the kid zone play area and I was really craving a cheese on a stick besides it was lunch time anyway. I got the kids a hot dog on a stick and a cheese on a stick and some lemonades..They even gave me a COOL card full of free items to get in 2012  SCORE!!!

 Ava was dancing in excitement...We don't go to the mall very often.

 Silly

 It really was not that filled for Black Friday! I guess all the shoppers got in and out the night before or in the wee hours of the morning.

 In the coin op playground I let Ava go on a couple things. Parker wanted her to ride on the back of the motorcycle one...I guess he is practicing for when he takes passengers on his scooter.

 Hold on Ava

Ava of course wanted to do the merry go round..Um Parker ..I think you may be too big for this one...he didn't care.
By the time we left the mall it was dusk so it was a race to get home before dark. ..Poor Parker and his tiny beat up bike was having a hard time keeping up but we made it. Hopefully Santa will bring him one for Christmas.
Friday night was a pretty mellow one for us. Just kinda sat around the house and relaxed and had left overs. I took my mom to do some shopping earlier in the evening and soon called it an early night. Sometimes you just need those.