A Belated Mother's Day Tea at the English Rose

Over the weekend my husband Tim and I took Tim's mom out for a belated Mother's Day tea!

Tim's mom hates going out for Mother's day during actual Mother's day so she opted to wait until this past weekend for her special day. We asked her what she wanted to do for Mother's day and she said she wanted to go out to Pleasanton, walk around and look at the shops, then go get something to eat. I knew that in downtown Pleasanton they have a farmers market on Saturdays and also a tea room so I asked her if she wanted to go see these two things and thus, walking around the Pleasanton farmer's market, looking at the downtown Pleasanton shops, and going out for tea at the English Rose was our outing for her belated Mother's day.

The English Rose in Pleasanton has been on the top of my list of local tea places for well over a year even though I've only been there once before. I was very much looking forward to revisiting this tea shop. Unfortunately, I was not as impressed the second time around with this place. The first time I went there the tea service was impeccable. We were seated for our reservations right away and I was so surprised and delighted to see that they had cool glasses of water as well as a sweet sugar cookie waiting for us at our table. This time around we walked in at our reserved seating time of 1pm after previously being turned away because we got there too early. After waiting a few minutes standing around at the door and not seeming to be able to catch any of the tea staff's attention we walked farther in to where the register was at in the back of the tea shop. Once again, even though we were standing right in front of two ladies on the tea staff, and even though there was no one ahead of us in line, I found it very difficult to get the tea staff to acknowledge us. One lady, who appeared to be the manager, was standing almost directly in front of me behind the register counter looking at pictures on her co-worker's smart phone. My patience was being tried! After we were finally acknowledged and I let them know we were there for our reservations the lady pointed and said our table was over there by the fireplace rather than have someone escort us to our tables. I felt like we were off to fend for ourselves. Furthermore, after we sat, I noticed there was no cups of water waiting for us, though there was a cookie each.

Soon after we sat down, our tea server came and let us know about their tea selection and the menu for the day. We were told that we could have two different flavors of tea for the table. I had to stop and ask about this. There were three in our party. Does this mean one of us had to share a tea flavor and we weren't allowed to pick our own flavors? This seemed really odd to me since this is supposed to be a higher end proper tea place. We were not at someone's house for tea but out for tea. I was very polite about it but still had to ask. She said that actually with the little table which was set up next to our bigger table we could probably manage to have our own flavors of tea. This mix-up/restriction on tea flavors dashed the second thing I enjoyed most about my first experience at the English Rose. I remember each person being able to pick different flavors of tea and changing them so we can try at least two different flavors each while we were there. I guess they have changed things since I was last there. Or perhaps the young lady working that day was new and did not know it was supposed to be each person being able to try two different teas rather than each table only getting two flavors per table? I hope it was the latter and that the girl was just getting it wrong that day.

The rest of the tea service went alright. The food was great, the company was great, and the service went by smoothly. Also, my pick of Carrot Cake flavored herbal tea was delicious! And so we ended up having a lovely time at the English Rose despite the unfortunate hiccups at the beginning.

English Rose, Pleasanton CA

Our Table Set Up And Waiting For Us

Tea Selections From the English Rose. Any of the flavored black teas can be made decaffeinated up to 80% at the English Rose

Three Tiered Plate For Three At the English Rose

Tim, Me, And Tim's Mom Enjoying A Belated Mother's Day At the English Rose

Around the Tea Shop:

At the Front of the One Room Tea Room

Giftables at the English Rose

Outside In The Lovely Garden Area:

Sign at the Side of the Tea Room By the Garden Entrance

Lovely Tea Table Set Up in the Garden

Garden Area at the English Rose

Side Entrance of the English Rose

Outfit of the Day:

For this special tea outing I wore a light blue and white floral dress by Taylor which I got from Nordstrom Rack. What I love about this dress is that the material is thick and so keeps its shape well including, especially, the flair of the skirt! Also, the fabric has lots of texture to it giving it a very rich feel. This thick, textured polyester dress is completely lined in 100% cotton giving it a nice feel while making it easy care with little worries about wrinkling. I paired this with some navy flats, a light blue and white polka dot wired headband I got as a free gift from Modcloth, and a bold navy and white striped cardigan by Chaps from Kohls.

Outfit of the Day, Taylor Dress Chaps Cardigan- Front View

Outfit of the Day, Taylor Dress Chaps Cardigan- Side View

Outfit of the Day, Taylor Dress- Front View

Outfit of the Day, Taylor Dress- Side View

When The Amazing, Fantastic, Incredible Traveling Cat Circus Was In Town!!!

I heard about the traveling cat circus and cat rock band from the Trashy Diva blog. After that I was hooked like a feline on catnip!!!

The Acro-Cats and Rock Cats are truly an amazing, exciting, and fun show!!! Just like the title of this post, the show was amazing, fantastic and incredible! It was the best show I've seen in a long long long long time! The Acro-cats were amazing. They rode on skateboards, jumped through hoops, jumped through smaller hoops, balanced on balls, balanced on balls while walking, scaled ropes, pushed tiny shopping carts, leaped through the air from platform to platform on command over 6 feet in the air, weaved in and out between rods, even played a little bowling. It really was THAT amazing! And there were cats, cats everywhere on the stage!!!! I was truly in crazy cat lady heaven!!!

Then, just when you thought it couldn't get any better than that, the Rock Cats came out. There was a cat playing the chimes, another on the guitar, another on the drums, another on the keyboard, a chicken was playing the tambourine and cymbals, and yet another cat was playing the cow bell! Then there was the cat that sat on the skull thinking the skull was an instrument ;). That makes six cats and one chicken all on stage at the same time performing! My husband leaned over during the show and said to me... "I'm completely over stimulated!" Yep, that was the sentiment perfectly!

If you're in the U.S. and love cats you should definitely check them out... they may just be coming to a town near you. When I first heard about this show from the Trashy Diva blog the show was still something like five months away from being in San Francisco but I marked my calendar and patiently waited for the cats to come. It was completely worth the wait! For those in the area that missed it, never fear! They announced they will be coming back to SF! I'll totally be there again when they come back! This is a show not to be missed!!! Not even for a second viewing! <3

What Are We Getting Ourselves Into?

The Stage Is Set, Let The Mayhem Begin!

Cat Pushing Car

Cat Riding Shotgun While Another Cat Pushes

Cat Jumps From Platform To Girl- Whoops, Forgot To Trim Claws!

Cat Jumps From Girl To Girl

Cat Jumping Through Hoop

Tiny Kitten Scaling Rope

Yay Kitten!

Skateboarding Cat!

Skateboarding Cat!

Leaping Cat!

Extra Small Hoop

Big Cat Jumping Through Extra Small Hoop

Leaping Cat

Leaping Cat Lands Again

Cat Balances On Tube

Cat Pushing Ball

Leaping Cat Through Hoop

Cat Walking On Ball

Cat Walking On Small Ball

My Favorite, Cat Goes Shopping... BIG SALE!

Cat Balances On Skull

Chicken Goes Bowling

Cat Does Not Go Bowling

Cat Goes Bowling

Kitty Mayhem!

Kitty Ringing Bell

And Now... The Rock Cats!!!

Tuna On Cow Bell

Cluck Norris on Cymbals and Tambourine

From Left To Right: Cat On Skull, Cat On Chimes, Cat On Cow Bell, Cat On Guitar, Cat On Drums, and Cat on Keyboard

The Band's All Here, Chicken On Cymbals

More Cats Came! Eight Cats On Stage Plus One Chicken!

Things Are Getting Outta Control! Ha!

Pretty Kitties!

Me with Tuna!

Tim And I With Animal Trainer And Supreme Cat Mama Extraordinaire, Samantha Martin

Tim And I With the Cat Car

Traveling Kitty Tour Bus

Til You Come Back Again Acro-Cats and Rock Cats!! <3

Outfit of the Day:

What would an outing to a traveling cat circus and rock cat band be without cats on a dress? Just not enough cats unless you take some with you!

For this outing I wore my Heart of Haute Matey dress in It's Raining Cats which I recently got from Cats Like Us. You can see my review of this dress here. I paired this dress with a red cardigan, black burlesque-esque type striped tights, and black flats. I also wore my black cat earrings which you can't really see too well in the pictures.

Heart of Haute Matey Dress in It's Raining Cats- Front View

Heart of Haute Matey Dress in It's Raining Cats- Side View

It's Raining Cats!: The Raining Cats Matey Dress by Heart of Haute

I've been meaning to review this dress for quite some time now!

This is the Matey dress by Heart of Haute in It's Raining Cats which I got from Cats Like Us during their month-long April dress sale! This dress is a sailor style, halter top, fit and flair, A-line dress with a super cute pattern of black cats with red umbrellas on a white background. The contrasting black skirt compliments the black boarder and bow at the bust as well as the black halter straps perfectly. The back is elasticized at the top and there is a back zipper. There is also a black back tie at the waist. I got this dress in my usual size large which proved to be a great fit for my 38-31-38, 5'3" frame. I was a little worried about the length of this dress as this dress seemed to be much shorter than other Heart of Haute dresses from what I could see on the model from the Heart of Haute website as well as from what I could see on Julie Ann from the Cats Like Us website but because I'm short and only stand 5 feet and 3 inches the dress came down to just above my knees which is a good length for me! Super cute dress and just perfect for where I wore it to.... in the next blog post!!!!

Heart of Haute Matey Dress in It's Raining Cats- Front View

Heart of Haute Matey Dress in It's Raining Cats- Side View

Heart of Haute Matey Dress in It's Raining Cats- Back View

C.C. Cookie Says She Wants To Play Too!