The Beverly Hillbillies Go To Tea

The Beverly Hillbillies went to "Tea" this weekend. 

 Seriously.  I be you didn't know that, did you?

It's not every day that happens ya know.

It was a real fun time to say the least!  :)

"So come and listen to a story about a man named Jed,"

wait...

I mean come and read about our story at the tea room...here's how it goes...

My sweet, precious girlfriends from Tennessee came into town this past weekend so I just had to show them the hot spots of downtown Wake Forest!  All 1/2 a mile of it.  :)  Luckily in that half mile they have some really cool stuff!  Delicious restaurants, cute little shops, and this....

Mhmm...the tea room.  I heard many a great things about the tea room from a few locals so I decided to test the hot waters at the tea room.  (literally...that tea was hot!)  :)

 Now me and my girlfriends-- we're all girly girls I'd have to say, so I just I knew we'd have a fine time sipping our hot tea, eating tea sandwiches and scones, wearing our big hats, and talking about the wonderful things that people who go to afternoon tea talk about.

We did.

And we were real good at doing it too!

So at 3 PM on Saturday afternoon, Emily, Megan, Lauren and I went to our proper afternoon tea experience.  We met up with two of my new fabulous girlfriends here in North Carolina, Jodi and Sarah.  The more the merrier, right?!  And I just knew that they would all like each other!

We went through these fancy doors...

and then sat down on this old fancy couch and made ourselves comfortable while we waited for Jodi and Sarah to get there.  Unfortunately I forgot my camera to capture all of the fun that transpired during these first few moments inside.  :(   So let me just tell you about it since I don't have any pictures.

We sat down on the fancy sofa and took a look around the place.  The tea room was old.  And pretty.  And just so much fun.  Everywhere you looked there was something that would catch your eye.  It smelled, looked, tasted, and felt like everything that you think a tea room would be like.

As we were sitting on the sofa we saw a big trunk of hats and a mirror to a room off of the foyer area.  We decided to go ahead and pick out some hats to wear for our tea (since none of us really own "proper tea hats").  And yes, this was a communal trunk of hats.  (Sorry Mom and Dad---I did check for bugs...promise!)  Everyone who goes into the tea room is offered one of these fancy, used hats to wear while you are enjoying your tea...AND much to our surprise, you could even buy these "fancy" hats.  Ha!  Used hats for the low price of $32 a pop!  Each of us bought our own!  Kidding.  :) 

So we all had a wonderful time picking out our hats--laughing and snorting at how each other looked in every one of them.

Jodi and Sarah arrived and met us at our table wearing smashing hats just like the rest of us.

Here is Megan, Jodi, and Lauren at one side of the table:

and Sarah, Emily and myself on the other side.

The first thing we did was order our tea.  We all went for the hot tea to ensure that we had a "proper afternoon tea" experience.  Megan and Lauren ordered Jasmine Green Tea, I ordered the Market Spice Tea, Emily ordered the Strawberry Tea, Sarah ordered the Mango Tea, and Jodi ordered the Market Spice Tea as well.

So we are all chatting it up and then our sweet waitress (who goes to Southeastern as well as her husband) brought us our tea.  She brought them to us in the cutest little pots and the weirdest little contraptions to go with it.  Just look how cute it is:

And then we saw that little silver contraption.

That's when we all figured out that we were out of our element.

None of us knew what to do with it.

You can really tell Sarah doesn't know what is going on...

but then we figured it out!!!!  Hooray!!!  You sit it on top of your cup and pour your tea through it to catch all of the tea leaves.

Megan's got it figured it out!!!

Now we all know how to pour our tea!  We all have intense looks of concentration on our faces when we pour too! 

For the most part we all liked our tea.  Except for this one....

I don't think she likes tea...period.  But she sure does look happy drinking this here!  Her response to her green tea after she took a sip, "This taste like something cows would drink!"

I thought we were all going to fall in the floor laughing.  It was hysterical.  She hated the tea so much that she even tried to just chug it quickly to get it out of her cup.  But then she couldn't.  :(  So she poured the rest of hers in Lauren's cup.  And then Lauren drank it.  We're all friends.  And we all love each other.  This isn't weird to us.  :)  We may have passed cups around the table the whole time we were there!  Ha!

And remember this lovely lady? 

She told us all about how she took an etiquette class one time.  So we thought she'd show us all the ropes on how to have "proper tea".  Here's the story...

One side of the table had sugar cubes in their little sugar bowl and one side of the table had pure cane sugar in their bowl (that was my side of the table and yes, we were jealous of the sugar cubes).

Well, Ms. Sarah had already put some sugar in her tea and stirred her tea up with her spoon.  She takes a sip and thinks that she needs some more sugar.  So then she opens up our sugar bowl (the one that is just pure sugar in the bowl) and says, "Oh no!  How am I going to get this out?"  Without missing a beat, she shakes the tea off of her spoon and throws that wet spoon down into the sugar bowl to get her a big 'ol scoop of sugar.  I honestly thought we were all going to pee our pants.  And I believe that is why her tea tasted like hot Capri Sun juice if you ask me!  Love it!  And her!  Hilarious!  :)

So our tea sandwiches arrive.  We had quite a variety!

Egg salad, tuna salad, cucumber, and chicken salad.  They were all delicious, but most of us at the table don't like tuna.  So we all tried to pawn our tuna off of one another the whole time!  :)  No one really partook though.

And then it was time for our delicious scones and devonshire cream. 

Devonshire cream....Yuuuummm!  I loved it!  It was like a cream cheese, sour cream, yougurt mixture all in one.  So wonderful!  And the scones were wonderful too!

Here is my yummy scone below...

Some of us had a harder time eating our scones than others.

Didn't we Jodi?!  Hahaha!  Poor thing couldn't keep her devonshire cream on her scone.  She flung it on the floor, on her dress, and in her hair.  I have to hand it to her though...that devonshire cream was slick coming off that knife.  I'm surprised I wasn't the one that did this.  :)  We'll just call her that girl on the Beverly Hillbillies that has the blonde hair and pig tails.  She's pretty!  :)

Love

her

heart!

And then we have precious Lauren.  She is our green tea drinker.  She knows her teas and she was drinking this tea up!  :)  (Maybe this means she'll come to Wake Forest again since she liked it so much!) 

Remember this thing that I was telling you about?  The little tea strainer thing....

No, those aren't turnip greens in there even though that's what I said when I first saw it.  Well ya see, these things are VERY important when you are having your tea.  You MUST pour your tea through the strainer or else you will get one thousand tea leaves in your tea.  Okay, maybe not a thousand but it sure is a lot.

Well, precious Lauren forgot to use her strainer.  

So she just decided to pop the lid off of her tea pot and pour her tea back in there. 

The girl was bound and determined to start over.  She did!

The funny part about this is that the waitress was right behind her when she did it.  I can't remember exactly what she said but it was one of those comments that would've made you laugh!  Love you, Lauren!  I would have done the same thing!

And then we have our artist, Emily.  :)  She's really not an artist but I think she could be.  She looks like the most awesome painter in this picture!  She really loved her strawberry tea and I really loved her hat that she chose.  Guess how much that "used" hat was?  30+ dollars!  Get. out. of. here.  Craaazy!

Here's the story with Emily and me...

Emily needed some sugar for her tea.  But not any sugar would do.  You see we all loved the sugar cubes to be put in out tea....it was like a special treat to all of us!  It's just something about those sugar cubes...they just aren't an every day occurence.  So like I said earlier...mine, Emily, and Sarah's table had regular sugar and not the special sugar cubes.  Emily just had to have one of the sugar cubes so I managed to get her a couple to throw in her tea.  Litlerally.

Instead of politely passing the sweet bowl of sugar cubes down to Emily, Megan got a couple with the tongs and put them in my hand and I threw them in her cup. 

Just in case you didn't see the cubes in teh first picture...

We are so stinkin' classy!  :)

Next up...DESSERT!  We had petite desserts...

We had a fancy raspberry swirl fudge like creation, a chocolate candy, a chocolate rolled wafer, and one fancy chocolate cookie!  That cookie with the nuts on it...it was really tasty.  You know where it was from?

Mhmm!  You're reading that right!  :)

Here is our precious little table that we all ate at:

It looks like there is a pair of handcuffs lying on the table!  Ha! 

Nope those are the fancy tea strainers!  Yes sir!

So after our fancy tea party we decided to browse the "gift shop"!

I came very close to buying one of these cups to commemorating our trips but then I remembered I had a cute little tea pot at home that I could sit out and remind myself of our fun time!

But before we get to the "real" gift shop, here is a group picture of me and my girls!  I just love them all to pieces!  :)

And now to the gift shop....

This gift shop was downstairs below the tea room.  I was expecting all different kinds of teas, tea pots, tea accessories, hats, etc.  Ya know, everything that you need at a tea!  :)

Ummmm no.  That wasn't the case.

It was a treasure cove of all of the most random things you could ever think of!

Here is Random thing #1:

An old wedding dress....

Jodi came a hair close to buying it so she and Chad could renew their vows.  :)

And they also had trains of wedding dresses there as well.  So we decided to play the Royal Princess

See Princess Kate and Pippa below! 

Precious!

If you can't tell by the background of these pictures, there was plenty of random, old, antique-y, sorta junky, some cute stuff in the basement "gift shop"!  Some things had prices and others didn't!  I'm not sure what the story was about that?  ;)

But we sure did have fun looking around at everything!

We made some good memories at the

We had a lot of good laughs and a lot of good fun.

And we didn't even plan on being the Beverly Hillbillies!  It just kinda happens!

I think that happens when you around the ones you just love!

I just love these girls so much!  You all better come back asap!  My house is open anytime for you all!  :)

(We are missing Amie in this picture though!  We missed you Amie!!!!)

And I'm so thankful for these girls and for all of us finding each other in North Carolina!  God sure did know what He was doing when he put us three together!  :)  Love ya'll!

And now I loooooooove tea rooms!  We had a blast and this might just have to become a yearly thing...maybe we'll all travel the country to different tea room?!  I love that idea!

The Beverly Hillbillies Go To Tea Across the Country...I like that title.  :)

Wishing for more tea,
The Preacher's Wife  :)



A Visit From the Parentals & Happy Father's Day

My parentals came about a month or two ago.  It seems like forever ago.  Maybe I'm just wishing that they would come back soon!  :)  (hint, hint!)

So the first picture I took was when we took them to the mall.  I took this picture for my sister so she would come visit asap.  :)

And it was Nordstrom.  I knew she would cringe when she saw this.  She loves to shop!  :)

And of course we went to Williams Sonoma!  It's only my favorite store in the mall!  And of course, my dad made best friends with the man who was trying to sell him an espresso maker!  Hahaha!!  So fun!  (and he has no idea that I took this picture!) 

ANNND we went to the yummiest place on Earth....The Cheesecake Factory!!!

And we got one of our favorite things there...the Fried Macaroni and Cheese Balls.  They are just heavenly!!!  So so so good!

And then we all split this....

Red Velvet Cheesecake!!!  AMAZING!

The next day was Father's Day....so we took Dad fishing!

Here is me padre and me husbando (I can't remember the Spanish word for hubby...sorry).  They had some bonding time!  :)  Precious.

What do you think they are thinking?  Haha!

Here they are again!  :)

And again!  I am so annoying to go fishing with!  I take your picture multiple times!  Ha!

And guess who caught the first fish!  That would be me!  :)

 

Another reason why I'm not fun to go fishing with.  I might have rubbed it in their face that I caught the first fish!  :) 

And look at this cute little toad!

A close up view of him...

and then Dad picked him up for me...

he was teeny tiny!  so cute!  :)

Here's my men fishing...

Hubs...

and my daddy...

 

I'm not as cool and relaxed as they are when I fish!  haha!

Here is my hubby.  He is probably changing his lure because I caught a fish before he did.  :)

 

Having lots of fun!

Then we came back and I cooked Dad a yummy Father's Day Dinner complete with chicken kabobs, hash brown casserole, green beans, and homemade rolls, and grape salad.  It was quite yummy!  Matter of fact I'd really like to have some right this minute!

And then I showed my parents how I have my own beauty shop outside of my back door!  :)

 

I'm ready for them to come back soooooooooon! 

Dear parents, please come back soon!  I miss you!

Love,

The Preacher's Wife/Your Daughter :)