Pixar Tea at the Disneyland Hotel

I have been to Disneyland lots of times and quite a few times over the last few years but I still find things I have never done.  Disney is always coming up with new things to do.  Tea at Steakhouse 55 at the Disneyland Hotel has been around for a few years but I have never made the time to do it.

During Christmas and Halloween they have special themed teas so I wasn't surprised that the tea while I was there was a Pixar theme to go with Pixar Fest going on throughout the resort. All the table has fun Pixar flower arrangement centerpieces and mine was Up themed. I also saw a cute Finding Nemo one on some tables and I think there was some sort of Toy Story one too.

Once you are seated you are given a menu with all your tea choices and you also get to choose if you want the Classic Tea or the Premium Tea.  The difference with the Premium Tea is that with it you get a glass of champaign, a salad and a truffle to go at the end.  I was worried that I wouldn't have enough room for all the other food and a salad so I decided to stick to the regular tea.

I don't drink caffeine so a bunch of the teas were off limits to me.  I actually don't like black teas or really any tea-ish flavored teas so I was perfectly happy sticking to the herbal teas anyway. I was torn between the mint tea and a berry tea but decided on the berry one since it sounded more unique. Each person gets their own gets their own little pot of tea so you and your friends can all have different teas. Before they brought out the rest of the food they brought out a tray "accessories" for the scones and it was a major accomplishment that I didn't just start eating the devonshire cream with a spoon!

After a drinking tea for a few minutes a beautiful tower of delicious goodies appeared on the table.  It was all fun and colorful and right on the Pixar theme.

The top layer had two types of scones on it.  One was currant and the other one was chocolate chip with rainbow sprinkles baked it.  Both of them were good on their own but really scones are the best vehicle for Devonshire creme. If I had to choose a favorite I would have to say the sprinkle one was the best.

The bottom tier was the desserts. There was Woody themed chocolate covered strawberry, a Monsters Inc cupcake, an Up grape soda themed eclair (that thankfully was cream filled with a little grape jam so not fake grape flavored) and Ratatouille cheese shaped cheesecake. I think the little cupcake was my favorite though the strawberry was really nice and perfectly ripe.

The middle tray was the savory "tea sandwich" level and Devonshire cream aside it was my favorite. The blue deviled egg was Finding Nemo themed, the little veggies on toast was from Ratatouille, the one with the crazy organge things on it is Merida's hair from Brave and the avocado one was the three eyed aliens from Toy Story.  To the surprise of no one my favorite one was the avocado one.

All in all it was a very delicious way to spend an afternoon. I scheduled the tea for around 1 PM so it made a perfect late lunch and gave me a nice middle of the day rest in the air conditioning. If you are looking for a way to have a nice way meal and to avoid the heat or midday crowds this is a great option.  I can't wait to try the regular tea or the Christmas one or the Halloween one too!

Life Lately

This time of year is quite busy at work (budget and the end of our fiscal year) but I took Thursday off to watch my niece graduate from the 8th grade. 

It was in a local high school in their outdoor football stadium at noon so before I went to the graduation I pretty much dipped myself in sunscreen and wore a big floppy hat.  I was successful in not getting sunburned so I will call that a success.

For a graduation this was actually a relatively short one at a little less than an hour and a half. The speeches weren't great (8th graders don't always have the best writing skills) but there were only a couple and then they were on to reading all six billion names of the graduates.

After the ceremony we took some photos with the new graduate in her robes before we all got hungry and it was time for lunch.

We went to lunch at a vegan place called Veggie Grill that I have always enjoyed. My husband was skeptical of this restaurant but even he had to admit it was pretty delicious. The two best things we had a lunch were the buffalo wings and the chocolate chip cookie.

Since my husband's whole family was in town for the graduation we decided to do an Escape Room Thursday night. We didn't quite make it out of the room in the 60 minute time limit but we were close so they let us finish the room even after the time ran out. Even though we didn't quite escape it was still a blast and we plan to do another one next time my sister-in-law is in town. Next time we will escape.

Friday I went to work, went to OrangeTheory, came home, made dinner and called it an early night.  I can tell you are super jealous of my exciting Friday.

Saturday my husband, my brother in law and I went to a local Portuguese festival. We have been to the festival before and know it gets busy later on and they sell out of things so we went about an hour after the festival started to make sure we had all the options.

The real reason we went early in the day was because the last time we went they were sold out of this sardine plate that my husband really wanted to try.  As evident by the picture we made it before they sold out.  I am not a big sardine fan but my husband thought it was delicious.

I ate lots of other delicious food at the festival that I can't remember the names of but I know I went home full of good food. In addition the lots of good food there were games and such for the kids, booths selling things and a stage with different performers.

Sunday I drove down to Monterey County to meet my parents and one of my sisters for lunch and then I headed to the hair salon.  My hair was super overdue for some care and is much happier now.  There was a ton of traffic on my way home so it took way to long to get home but I did finally make it home. Not quite the way I wanted to end my weekend but overall a pretty good weekend.

Patriotic Summer Decorations

Now that we are officially in June I took down my spring decorations and put up my patriotic decorations. 

A few weeks ago I had lunch with a friend and after lunch we were walking around Michaels and I found this cute patriotic jug.  I was hoping it was water tight so I could put some sunflowers in it.  It would have been so cute but alas it was not water tight so I ended up putting a little pom pom thing in it instead. I might try and find some artificial sunflowers at some point but for now I am happy with how my side table turned out.

My ocean breeze candle has blue stripes on it so it fit in perfectly with all of my patriotic decorations. Since I used my blue and white table runner on the other side of the room I decided to just put some star lights on the bar along with the glittery hats and call it a day.

I have finally bought a frame to put on this wall (only too 7 months!) but I haven't put it up yet so in the meantime I put up a 4th of July sign.

I threw a couple of patriotic decorations on my TV stand to brighten up that side of the room. Gotta love fun little signs from the Dollar Spot at Target.

I used some star garland draped in a little wooden box on top of my china cabinet in our dining room and used the sunflowers I was hoping to use in my living room just in a regular mason jar on our dinning table.

I will probably leave all these decorations up (except the flowers that will need to be replaced) at least a few weeks past the 4th of July since there really aren't any other summer holidays to decorate for. Can't really get away with decorating for fall in July can I?