Treasured Tea Time

Yesterday I was invited to participate in a very special day. My friends Sonia (in pink) and Pamela (in ivory) have birthdays a day apart. They usually do something fun together and this year wanted to go to a tea house...and they asked me to come too. We had a nice tea together at Treasured Tea Time in Sacramento and afterwards went to Sonia's house for several hours of scrapbooking fun! :o)
We were given the opportunity to wear hats
and boas. This picture of me illustrates why "just because you can, doesn't mean you should!" LOL Hats have never looked good on me. We opted to forgo them!

Pam has such a generous giving spirit. She brought a gift for each of us. For Sonia she brought three tea cups that we can use when we are scrapbooking at Sonia's house. In this picture she is explaining about how a friend told her about a tradition of giving your dear friend a cup from your own china set because it is like giving a piece of yourself. Pam gave Sonia a cup from her beautiful Lennox china.

And she gave her these two lovely tea cups for Pam
and I to use at her house. My gift was fun, a tea for one set from Roy Kirkham

who is the designer that made my lovely Redoute Roses tea cup which I featured in a previous blog entry. I can't wait to use this! :o)
We all had lovely china to eat from and we each chose our own tea cup from a hundred or so they had displayed in the dining area. I have been to several teas which were quite nice, but never to a tea room. I thought the tea room was nice, the service was excellent, but the food was mediocre (hard and dry scones). The company was wunderbar, so I couldn't complain! I was so thankful to be invited. I think in these types of places you are paying for the experience as much as the meal.

In addition to tea sandwiches we had a soup that was potato, carrot and garlic. Our tea was served for us after steeping
in individual pots. Pam had a black tea that had an apricot scent/flavor, Sonia had a white tea called White Monkey Paw (I thought that sounded like the name of an Asian fertility herb treatment! LOL) and since I do not like tea...white, green or black...I opted for my standby, which is peppermint. It was very good too!

The tea room was in a little strip mall which surprised me because I think of them as being in hotels, Victorian homes etc. But they decorated nice...even the bathroom, pictured here! :o)

They had quite a large selection of china in
varying qualities displayed throughout the front shop area.

It was fun looking around and trying hats and I even purchased a book so I may try my own tea party at sometime in the future. I hope to also do it with my girls when they grow older and use some of my family antique china.

We had a lovely time afterward at Sonia's house visiting, listening to music, eating some more :o) and scrapbooking! I was able to get pictures down on 24 pages. I may go back later and add more embellishments and I always do my journaling when I am alone and it's quiet.

Well, we are having a quiet Sunday. The kids were too sick to go to Sunday School again. So we went out a little as a family and we are resting now. I taped the European Figureskating Championships so I hope to watch that for awhile. When we came home someone had left on our doorstep a loaf of sourdough bread, cans of chicken noodle and minestrone soup, goldfish and animal cracks and oranges! I think it might be my friend Sarah from church who knows that our family has been sick. Hopefully this week we will all be back to normal. I am really missing the fellowship and want to get back to my two Bible studies and church! I'm feeling a little disconnected!