December 2

This post has nothing to do with teaching, but everything about friendship with women.

Every year, for the last 7 years,  a group of friends go to a wine tasting lunch in Beverly Hills.  This year was my first year being able to go - oh my gosh we had so much fun.  The wine and food were so yummy, the service was top notch and the company was perfect.  We are a group of friends that have known each other, for at least 8 years, through our sons' high school football team.  Some of the group have known each other longer from their daughters being in cheer.  We are that group of friends that might see each other once a year, but can find anything to talk about and we get totally crazy.

We had 3 courses of food and 6 or 7 different kinds of wine to taste.  I, guess, it use to be 5 courses - but with budget cuts.  The restaurant was right across from the street from the Beverly Wilshire Hotel - the one that they filmed "Pretty Woman".

We think the top part looks like where she was sitting outside and the fire escape looks like the end of the movie, her apartment where she lived.  One of the girls was going to watch the movie to check it out.

This is the front of the hotel, we think.

The hotel borders Rodeo Drive. 

After lunch, we did a little window shopping to walk off the wine, I mean lunch.  These rings were huge and gorgeous.  We came to the conclusion, that if there was a security guard by the front door, we probably couldn't afford the jewelry.

We went to this Starbucks for some coffee. It was the worst cup of Starbucks I have ever had.

This is the tree outside the restaurant before our lunch.

This is what the tree looked like, all lit up, before we went home.  I did get a little Christmas shopping done while we were down there - Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel.  The shopping bags are really cute, need to save them.  I saw on Pinterest where they framed shopping bags.  At the time, I thought it was crazy - but now, hmm not so crazy.  They would look really cute on a wall at Christmas time.