My girl and I decided we were long overdue for a Mama/Ellie day. Just the two of us, adventuring in the far-off, exotic lands of Pleasanton where we hit up a tea house and the Build-A-Bear Workshop.
It was a very fluffy-pink-sparkly-floral kinda day, the type of day that doesn’t often happen in our typical adventuring. Truth be told, I know Elise longs for more of these types of days. She’s a girly girl through and through who doesn’t mind scurrying over rocks but would prefer to be doing it in a pink dress and glittery sandals. So we traded in our bathings suits and hiking clothes for skirts and dress shoes and headed East.
The English Rose Tea Room
http://www.theenglishrose-pleasanton.com
This place is the definition of frilly, not an inch left undone. Elise loved it. We settled into our embroidered settee and ordered. The Princess Penelope tea with Chamomile for the lady, the Duchess Anne’s Delightful Tea with whatever black tea has the most caffeine for me.
The highlight of Elise’s food was the marshmallow and jam sandwich(!) and scone with lemon curd. She also asked if she could eat some sugar cubes. Yes, tempting sitting there in that bowl but no, no you can’t. I think you’re good with that marshmallow sandwich.
Build-A-Bear Workshop
After tea we headed to the Stoneridge Mall to hit up Build-A-Bear. While I grew up in suburbia and spent countless hours of my youth hanging at the mall, I realize it’s a pretty foreign concept to my kids. We don’t really have one near us so it really was a somewhat exotic location. At one point Elise said “I don’t ever want to leave this place” in a voice like travelers say when on a beach in Thailand for the first time.
We found the bear workshop and were ushered through the building of a bear by some very friendly staff. Elise knew exactly what she wanted from the selection of the bear itself, through to the wardrobe styling. Obviously a bathing suit and flip flops, it is summer afterall.
She also chose the characteristics her bear would have in it’s little red satin heart that they literally stuff inside the bear before sewing the bear up. These were: Sparkly, Nice, Happy, Honest.
Once the bear was stuffed, she gave the bear a “bath” in the touchscreen interactive tub. Clearly her favorite feature at the workshop, she gave her bear about seven baths total before I could get her out of there.
She named this clean, bathing beauty “Fluffy” and declared she would go nowhere without her new bear.
We headed home, Elise falling asleep hugging Fluffy. I realized I also like a little girly girl time, especially when it’s watching my best girl have a day I could tell she deeply enjoyed. In her words “I didn’t just like today, I looooovvvved today.”
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