Thanks so much for the birthday wishes everyone! So very sweet of you to send little bundles of happiness my way. I did indeed spend the day away from home. We left in the morning to head to our first stop Rogers Gardens.
Have you ever been? It's such an amazing place. There are acres of lush plants, garden rooms, a gourmet gift shop, urns and planters of every size, and dozens of ideas to display and pot your plants when you get home. Every single one of my birthday gifts came from here. Little Ollie topiaries, gorgeous succulents and fresh herbs and veggies. I can't wait to get them all planted!
Their use and variety of potted plants are unbelievable. I'll save some of my favorites for a later post. Next we headed to lunch at Brasserie Pascal in Newport Beach for the most delicious French food.
We dined on Halibut with Beurre Blanc Sauce, Croque Monsieur and Spinach and Artichoke Crêpes. If you are ever near here be sure to plan a visit to this authentic brasserie, you will love it!
After lunch we stopped in Barnes & Noble to browse and headed to Balboa Island to walk around and grab a coffee at Starbucks. Then my favorite thing to do on the island...drive through the neighborhoods.
This was my favorite house. I absolutely love the stone, and the windows, and the door which I cut off because I was driving. But trust me, it was a wonderful dutch door. I am obsessed with dutch doors. I took about 30 photos of them but I won't bore you with my paparazzi door shots.
We ended the day at the movies to see Sherlock Holmes. It was very entertaining, surprisingly funny and everyone liked it. So if you have some free time I'd recommend it!
Now it's back to reality and time to take down the Christmas and clean all the dust. Our doors are still not installed and another "door guy" is coming to look at them tonight. So far, it looks like they are defective and the manufacturer has offered a replacement set in 3 weeks. Ahh, good times.
