Girls Day Out

For my birthday present Kari took me for a whole day of fun and adventure today to Grass Valley and Nevada City. They have picturesque downtowns with lots and lots of shops to stroll through. My main focus was Christmas shopping, but I did find a couple of steals for myself. Nothing too extravagant though, now that I got my work hours reduced I'm trying to be more conservative with my money. However, I did buy a medium size flat bamboo cutting board that has a handle on it so that it can be hung up on the wall when not in use (very handy for my limited counter and cupboard space), a cute black and gray dress (yes, I know Chris, this is my fourth black and gray dress) that was on clearance for $20 and fit me to a T, a royal blue (polyester) pea coat that was only $26 at a teeny-bopper store (kind of like Forever 21), and a mini bread and muffin/soup and stew split Gooseberry Patch cookbook. Some of my Christmas finds included some stemware and mugs etched with dragonflies for Mum who collects such designs. And the mugs were even in the shade of blue she's decorated the lake house with. These aren't the exact mugs (I bought the only two there and they were being wrapped), but you can see the color and design:
Here's the stemware:
The rest if top secret until Christmas....

Much to my surprise, I was showered with gifts yesterday by my co-workers. I got a tea cup and saucer from Joanna, a travel mug from Denise, a CD from Kari, a mini window flower vase from Dina, homemade soap from Cheri, and a coffee card from Coffee's On from Suzanne. I'm going to keep it comin' all weekend!
I even got one of my co-workers' Lori's famous flower bouquets.

So far our big plans for the morning are to get up and go to the Golden Waffle for a yummy birthday breakfast and then we're going up the hill to see Connor before his big birthday bash that evening. I know, our lives are so glamorous!