Tuesday Cuppa Tea, Lavender Festival Weekend Coming UP!

Hello and welcome to Tuesday Cuppa Tea! It's so nice to get together with my friends over a cup of tea! 

I amdoing a combo post here. As many of you know, my husband has been dealing with an infection for the last month and has had to go through 2 sets of antbiotics...one of them twice...to finally get it taken care of. Last week we spent the total of 3 1/2 days at doctor's waiting rooms, offices and labs...one lab had a wait time to even get in to the techs of 75 minutes! But...on our final doctor's visit of last week on Friday, we were told his labs had finally come back clear, so he is fully recovered! Hooray! But...wasn't able to get the post I had intended done, so I am coming up with something else.  

So...as it's our annual Sequim Lavender Festival, here is a Lavender themed English bone china botanical mug from Crown Trent....

Notice the botanical name at the bottom....I will be picking up some Lavender English Breakfast Black Tea from a local lavender farm that I like this week....now on to:

This week is Sequim's annual Lavender Festival, and this is this year's festival poster. The Lavender Festival features a farm tour, street fair, crafts, hot air balloon rides, music venues, lavender themed food of EVERY variety...if you can eat it, here it will have lavender in it! The festival opens with the street fair on Thursday and continues through the weekend.  There are 30 Lavender farms in a 10 mile radius of town, so...it is everywhere!

We go to the street fair, and then sorta hibernate...because we have to 30,000 extra residents for the Festival...even the ferry from Victoria, BC is sold out for both cars and walk ons for the Festival....

In 2011, we attended a Lavender Festival George Washington themed Lavender tea at the George Washington Inn Bed & Breakfast and Washington Lavender Farm, one of the farms on the Festival Farm tour, and this is a bit of a repeat of that post.

This first photo is courtesy of the George Washington Inn, all the rest were taken by me.

 This Lavender Festival in 2011 was the first time it had rained on the Festival proceedings in 15 years. And Friday from 3 pm and through most of the night it poured!  Usually if we have anything this time of year it's sort of a misty rain.  We wondered about our farm tour, but there was some sun attempting a come back and we headed on our tour. At the George Washington Inn, which lies right on the coast of the Strait Of Juan de Fuca, fog prevailed. You can acyually look out behind the house, and the sun porch where we tea was planned and see Victoria, BC Canada across the Strait. No such luck on Saturday. We were sad for the folks who didn't even know the coast, beach or Victoria were even there!

This was the view of the barn which houses the coffee shop, gift shop and plant nursery through the fog.

Approaching the Inn up the curved drive. The house is an exact replica outside of George Washington's Mount Vernon, although the inside is more open and modern.  Above the door was a bunting flag and a plaque put there by the owners: 

The George Washington Inn

Dedicated to The Glory Of God And The Faith of George Washington

February 16, 2008

Here are the tables set for the tea before we entered. There were several seatings, we were at the 12:30 pm, 2nd seating. The location is along the entire of the back of the house in an enclosed sun porch overlooking the coast and the Strait....which you couldn't see!

The china was patterned with purple and white, the flowers were lavender and calla lilies and there was a card with info about the Inn, the menu and a recipe for Washington Lavender Tea Biscuits and a packet of culinary lavender to make them.

The first course 

English Lavender Raspberry Black tea

Black Forest Ham & Lavender Cheddar Scones

Dried Cherry & Orange Biscuits

Fresh Lavender Tea Biscuits

Apricot Butter

Honey Lemon Butter

Raspberry Lavender Butter

The Second Course

Petite Spinach & Swiss Quiche

Smoked Salmon Mousse Filled Cucumber Cups

Lavender Cream Cheese Turkey Finger Sandwiches

The Third Course

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

Assorted Petit Fours

Raspberry/Lemon Lavender Cheesecake

The catering for the tea was done by a local caterer, Cameron's Custom Catering in Sequim and was very nicely done. My Honey felt there should have been another sandwich added, but.... I spoke to the owners of the Inn Dan & Janet and we discovered we had mutual friends, which was fun. The tea for the Festival was a one off, but it has caused them to consider adding a monthly afternoon tea. There aren't too many places in our area for tea, so we would certainly welcome that.

So there you have it...hopefully I will have more fun Lavender Festival photos by next weekend...looking forward to the hot air balloons this year!

Below is the list of some of the blog parties I will be part of and there is the linky for your tea related posts...please remember that it is SSSLLLOOOOOOWWWW but if you are patient...it's there! And I love to read your comments, and can find you to visit!

Mosaic Monday with Judith
 Tea Time Tuesday with Sandi 

A Return to Loveliness
 Tea Cup Tuesday 
 Friends Sharing Tea
 Share Your Cup Thursday

Roses Of Inspiration

An InLinkz Link-up