(Abby, Ruth, and Amy on our day off)

I like where I work. I like spending time with the people with whom I work.

We had our annual department retreat yesterday. We have a very small budget with which to cover the costs of food and entertainment for over 20 people, so it was a bit of a struggle to come up with something we could afford this year. Last year we did the Long Beach Aquarium.

So this time around we waited until the last minute to decide and ended up going the easy route: shopping, eating, and entertainment in downtown Brea.

We met up at the Corner Bakery Cafe for breakfast. I had a lunch for breakfast because I have a weakness for tomato-mozzarella-basil sandwiches. After that we went shopping along the promenade. Seriously, there were so many good sales. Tops for $5, $12, and $11.50, skirts for $3.97, and even more stuff on sale. I spent my whole montly budget for clothing in about 2 hours and came away with a lot of good stuff.

For lunch we headed out to the Cedar Creek Inn. Yummy! I had some angel hair pasta with tomatoes, garlic, and goat cheese, along with a lot of lemonade (very refreshing on a 100 degree day). It's always fun to have lunch with all the girls from work. I had enough food for 2 more meals after I was done, but I had to let it go since I wasn't going home for a few more hours. Pity.

After lunch the whole department piled into the theater to see The Lake House. It ended up being better than we thought (review to come) and perfectly suitable for our all-ages audience.

We even finished the day early and I got to come home and relax a bit more than usual. Ric and I ended the evening talking finances at Starbucks, figuring out what we want to do with our next investment moves, if it all checks out. Overall a very fun and satisfying day!

I got my signed D-Shirt yesterday! Sorry for the bad crop job. It's hard to click "Take Picture" while holding up a tshirt in front of a webcam.

I know I can stick a DVD in the player any time, but I don't always do it because I'm lazy. So it's my fault I got stuck watching this while cleaning over the weekend.

This is possibly the worst movie I have seen in several years. It's offensive in so many more ways than I expected it to be. Don't watch it.