First we made our way into this enormous, well-lit parking garage. If you want to know just how big this was let me just say that two lanes of traffic turn right into it as if the facility were a road itself. Needless to say there was no difficulty find a parking spot, and a couple of children we ran to the edge of the parking garage to get a look at The Grove below us. It was just like a quaint little village. It was already dressed like Christmas. I'm sure that factored into its quaintness.
The straight down view of The Grove. You can just barely see the fountain in this picture, but to either side are these sweet little restaurants where in November you can still eat outside and eat.
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| The devilishly handsome Ryan and the tops of buildings in The Grove in the background. |
Our first stop was to Barnes & Noble, which had three sweet floors of book selection. Otherwise it was pretty much your run of the mill big box bookstore. It was so much fun to look through the books. Ryan found some books that had these very cool vintage reissue covers. He bought an HG Wells collection, and Dantes' Divine Comedy. I got a blank book for my yearly New Year Resolutions/365 days of gratitude writings, and I got a 2013 Planner. I sure hope the world doesn't come to a screeching halt by year's end - I have 2013 plans man!!!
We walked around and really the place is a lot like a closer Freeport (Freeport, ME that is). The way it differs from Freeport is there is no traffic, but there are a lot of people and a lot of shops. I got to walk into my very first, very real Anthropologie store. Before this I could only do my drooling online, and they're so damn expensive I have to either sell organs or wait for someone to surrender a purchase to ebay - where I can scoop it up for much less than the original cost. I actually like that there is an Anthropologie store in town. Now I can go try things on to make sure I really really do like them. My dress at graduation this past summer was an Anthro dress my fabulous hubby got me.
It was a beauty. I haven't worn it since, but when the time is right I will haul it back out of the closet and put it on again.
Oh and I wish you all could see the back. It's lace. It's lovely.
All dresses aside though...Anthropologie was a nice little visit, and I don't think there were many other places we actually walked into to check out. But like I said there were a lot of retail stores here.
We did sneak into the farmer's market area. I'm not sure what this area looks like on Sundays when the farmer's market is in full effect, but on this given day it was like a food court with many vendors to select from. The choices were all good I am sure, but Ryan and I went with the BBQ you couldn't help but smell upon first walking through. This was some really, really good BBQ.
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| Such a good guy. He'll always pose if I ask. |
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| No Joke - Best BBQ ever! |
This was my yummy lunch. And if I remember correctly it was beef brisket and macaroni and cheese. It was something worth writing home about ;)
This is what Ryan had. (Sorry, the iPhone doesn't do close ups unless I jumped in Ryan's lap to get a proper picture, but that could have been awkward). Ryan had some kind of shredded beef BBQ with cheese, and he had macaroni and cheese too.
After lunch we had some homemade ice cream, which was also really good. And while we sat and ate our ice cream we just watched people walking by. I'm an avid people watcher. I love it. Well, while we were sitting there talking I noticed two men with microphones and someone who looked a lot like Mario Lopez. I told Ryan. I wasn't sure if it was really him or not, but I was fairly certain.
For those of you don't know who Mario Lopez is he was on the show Saved By The Bell. He played AJ Slater. So I wasn't really sure if I could count that as my first celebrity sighting? Not because it was only Mario Lopez, but because I wasn't sure if it was really him.
So Ryan and I walked around some more. We noticed there was a movie theater in The Grove and some tabloid journalism show was taping stuff in the middle of everything and people were standing around to watch. I took Ryan's picture with the Christmas tree, and Santa Claus and his eight tiny reindeer.
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| Ryan at The Grove amongst all the Christmas festivities |
The Cheesecake Factory The Movie Theater
Then we were accosted by a salesmen with a great accent and a penchant for making folks' nails shiny with a four-sided nail buffer. He told me to choose the nail I liked the least. I guess I never thought of such a thing before so I quickly picked one and he buffed away and it looked like a sheet of glass. Quite impressive, but what I could not impress upon him is how I don't give a "bleep" about my nails and do not paint them and do not mess with them and let them grow when they mind their business, but just the second one gets out of line and breaks then they all get cut short. Here's the thing about nail polish - I can't stand chipped polish. One needs to keep up with these things, and I just don't have the time or interest to keep on top of keeping my nails perfect.
Now even after that whole spiel he was still trying to sell us this buffer with a collection of lotions and oils and stuff. Finally he just let us go with his sales card. $60 for a nail buffer and hand lotion and cuticle oil I will never use is way out of my price range. We fled to the Gap, stood in the entrance for about 10 seconds and decided it was time to go home.
On our way out we saw ole Mario Lopez again. Talking on his cell phone. He looked right our way and this time I was certain it was him. I'm impressed at how young he looks considering he has to be pretty old - well 40 at least. Let me google it... OK he's 39.
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| Mario under the BE in BELL |
I thought I'd get a surge of adrenaline from seeing a celebrity at least, but it was nothing like that. It was just like oh, there goes Mario Lopez...I think?
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| Mario Lopez nowadays |
Later Ryan confirmed that he is a host of the show Extra, and that would have been the tabloid journalism show that was filming in The Grove that day.
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