Birthday Tea Party 2012

Like all of my posts, this one from my birthday is long overdue – my birthday was over a month ago! But we’ve been busy with all sorts of dance camps, Costume College, weddings (plus going to work!) – and for my birthday Chris bought me the fancy-pants photo editing software Lightroom, and I was determined to at least learn the basics and use it for my most recent photos, which took a while.
I’m also running low on my free space for photos through Blogger, so I started a new Flickr account. Hopefully all these new tools will makes things easier and more streamlined, but there’s definitely a learning curve with them!
For my birthday this year, I wanted to have a girl’s day out – a group of girlfriends joined me at the Orange Circle in Orange, CA for afternoon tea and vintage shopping. It was lovely but HOT walking around in the middle of the day! People wearing shorts and tanks thought we were crazy, but I’m glad my friends are such good sports.
And even though we brought fancy-pant cameras and I spent hours with my new software, the best photo of the day is the one I took with my iPhone and Instagrammed. Argh! đŸ˜‰
Lauren and Cait both bought their hats on our outing – 
Lauren’s hat came from the estate of Dixie Lee, Bing Crosby’s first wife. How cool is that!

I didn’t need to buy a hat, because I already had one with a rhinestone shrimp on it!
Delphine, me, and Cait at the Orange Circle fountain. 
So many shadows – noon is not the best time for photos!
Vintage girl with her vintage iPhone.
A local friend tipped me off to this cute Orange mural.
Delphine – fantastic dancer and newly married lady!
Lauren made her outfit, and has awesome stripe matching skillz.
Teatime! We went to Paris in a Cup, which is delightful and rather touristy, down to the fake French on the menu. Delphine, our Parisian transplant, had a good giggle at that.
Petit fours and edible orchids – it tasted kind of like lettuce.
Poor photography skills, but it shows the cute room!
And of course Charlie Cat had to sneak into the
 photoshoot at the end of the day. What a ham!