High Tea at the Ritz

Afternoon tea at the Ritz Carlton? Well aren’t we just the fanciest little trio?

My mom, sister and I have been talking about enjoying an afternoon tea at a fancy-pantsy kinda place for a year or so now.

We figured our girl’s weekend in Orlando would be a great opportunity to schedule our little tea party at the Ritz Carlton Grande Lakes.

When we arrived, we were guided to a comfy area of the lobby with plush leather chairs and a great view of the resort’s pool.

As were perused the menu, clouds rolled in and it started to pour. It made our tea experience feel all the more cozy!

We decided to order one traditional tea service to share, and two additional pots of tea so we could try three different kinds of tea.

I selected the green tea passion, which tasted like a fruity and slightly sweet green tea.

I really enjoyed my tea and my sister’s pear caramel tea. Both were very flavorful and perfectly soothing.

We sipped on our tea while chatting away and waiting for our tray of mini pastries and sandwiches to arrive.

When our treats arrived, our eyes got reeeeal big. It arrived on three plates in a little tower. Quite the display!

We felt like quite the classy bunch sippin’ our teas and munching on our quaint little treats… That is until I used my finger to enjoy every last bit of Devonshire cream that came with the buttery scone.

What is it with me and cream? I just love it!

Luckily my love for the cream that came with the scone was mirrored by my mom and sister’s love of the actual scone, so we ordered two more scones for us to share.

 

 

For me, the entire tea experience was highlighted by the scones and the cream… and the fantastic company. 🙂

In honor of my mom’s birthday, our waitress brought out a plate with three truffles and “Happy Birthday” written in chocolate for the three of us to share.

Yum!

All three of us agreed that we could get used to the high life with high tea every afternoon. 🙂 Now we just need to make billions of dollars to support our extravagant lifestyle. 😉

After tea, we headed to the bathroom before walking around the hotel for a little bit and I just had to snap a couple of pictures because it was ginormous and beautiful.

I love fancy bathrooms. I’m not sure why I get such a kick out of them, but whenever I visit a hotel or gourmet restaurant I always like to check out the bathroom.

After oohing and ahhing over the restroom, we explored the hotel for a little while before heading home.

I love exploring hotels and enjoy being surrounded by people who are on vacation. They’re always having so much fun (or are a little stressed 😉 ) and have an aura of excitement about them. Vacations are always so much fun and I enjoy seeing people take time to relax and spend quality time with loved ones. Too bad we can’t go on vacation more often!

Veil Shopping

After taking in the sites at the Ritz, we headed out to look a bridal veils. I found one that I like a lot, but didn’t want to commit without seeing my wedding dress again.

My dress should be arriving at the boutique in the middle of the month, so I plan to check it out and make sure the lace from my dress will really go with the lace on the bottom of the veil we found. My dress doesn’t have any beading and the veil I saw this afternoon does, but I think the lace from the veil could still go with the lace from my dress.

I have high hopes!

Once veil shopping was done, we headed home to hang out with Sadie for a bit.

Eventually our tummies started grumbling and we decided it was time for dinner.

Dinner

We piled into my car to head to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner since I had a coupon for one free meal.

None of us had ever been to Sweet Tomatoes before so we were excited to try it out. 

I piled my plate full of salad with lots of veggies and raspberry vinaigrette dressing.

I also enjoyed some fresh watermelon, pizza sticks, pasta and chicken noodle soup on the side.

Everything was good, but definitely not great. We all agreed that the food and restaurant reminded us a bit of meal plan food from college or the open buffets on cruise ships.

Dessert 

Even though dinner wasn’t fantastic, you know I wasn’t going to pass up the soft serve station for some dessert!

I topped my soft serve with granola and apple crisp. I enjoyed the apple crisp so much that I went back for another large bowl of vanilla soft serve with more warm apple crisp.

Dessert really is the best part of the meal. Nothing else even compares. 😀

Now we’re home and plan to spend the rest of the evening watching girly movies.

First up: Four Weddings and a Funeral. None of us have seen it and I’ve heard good things! Let’s hope it’s entertaining.

Off to watch Hugh Grant! 😀

My First Wine Tasting

My mom, sister and I are having a b-l-a-s-t during our weekend of girly fun!

Our first activity of the day took us 40 minutes outside Orlando to Clermont, Florida for a wine tasting and tour at Lakeridge Winery.

 

We arrived at the winery around 11 a.m. and were ushered upstairs to watch a video about the start of the vineyard and the history of the winery.

After the short video it was time for the tour to begin.

We learned about the grape-picking and fermentation processes and I found it particularly interesting to learn that all of the wines at this particular vineyard are made using muscadine grapes which can handle the heat and humidity of Florida.

These big vats held around 25,000 gallons of wine and were lined with six inches of foam to keep the wine cool.

I thought the “grape shaker” machine was really neat! It is driven over the vines, shaking them to loosen the grapes that are ripe enough to be made into wine.

Another interesting fact: About 5 percent of the vineyards grapes are lost every year… to birds. 🙂

Once the grapes are shaken from the vine, they are placed in a machine that churns them up to release the juices.

After touring the bottling area, we headed back inside to get to the good part… tryin’ the wines!

I took my first wine tasting experience very seriously and even took notes. 🙂

I liked the more sugary wines… surprise, surprise. 😉

I found the white wines that contained 3.3 percent sugar to be the most palatable.

The white wine that had 6.6 percent sugar was almost too sweet and tatsed like grape juice, however the Southern Red wine that had a 6.6 percent sugar content was right up my alley. Finally a red wine I actually enjoyed! Success!!!

We all enjoyed the Pink Crescendo, a sparkling wine meant to be paired with a rich dessert (yes, please!).

Our sommelier made us all laugh when he opened the sparkling wine and simultaneously turned on a bubble machine!

My favorite wines from the tasting included the Southern Red, Sunblush, Chablis and the Pink Crescendo. Tasty!

We made sure to purchase a bottle of each of our favorites before leaving.

This was my sister and my first wine tasting experience and we really enjoyed it! It makes me want to take a little trip to wine country! Anyone wanna sponsor that little vacation? 😉

After our wine tasting experience, we headed home for a quick lunch before heading out for our second girly activity of the day. I’ll be back soon with an update of our first fancy-schmancy high tea experience. 🙂

Stay tuned!

McMuffins for Mama

Since my mom is the mastermind behind my favorite healthified Egg McMuffin, I figured the yummy breakfast sandwich would be the perfect start to the first day of our girl’s weekend.

Healthified Egg McMuffin

I made my mom, sister and myself an eggy sandwich using a toasted Thomas’ light multi-grain English muffin, an egg white, a wedge of Laughing Cow light original Swiss cheese and a slice of Canadian bacon.

Bite of Yum

All of us agreed that this healthier version of the traditional Egg McMuffin from McDonald’s is just as good.

Now we’re off to get dressed before a busy day of girly fun including:

• Wine tasting
• Tea at the Ritz Carlton
• Dog Park
• Dinner

Aaaand we’re off!