Monday (12th December) started with a trip to Hobby lobby, people tend to scrunch up their noses when I suggest we take a dander around there, ”But I don’t craft!!”

But, when they get in there, it’s an hour or more before we emerge, clutching bags of goodies.  For the record, I LOVE Hobby Lobby!  Helena and I hit it hard, picking up some Christmas presents, ornaments and just generally having a wee walk around.

Next up was Old Navy, where I, surprisingly came out ‘on top’ so to speak.  I don’t normally shop for myself, but they had these $5 tops on sale (down from $13) and they were pretty cute, I also found some clearance slipper-boots, which was perfect as my old ones are well and truly knackered!

After shopping, we headed over to Sweet Tomatoes ready for lunch with some of the SSA ladies, Julie, Magz, Natalie, Ana Maria (plus kidlets), Melissa and her sister-in-law (plus kiddie).

Helena really enjoyed it there (as did I, but I always do!) and she enjoyed some cuddles with the lovely little Eve!

While we were having lunch, we decided to call up a beauty Salon and arrange for a little beautifying.  Our friend Theresa recommended a place local to her house, Woodbridge Nails so we decided to try it out, they could fit us in, so we went right away.  Helena got a mani-pedi and I had my first Shellac manicure.

For those of you that don’t know, a Shellac manicure is a pretty recent fad.  It’s a method of painting your nails so it lasts up to 14 days (or more), without losing shine, without chipping and without smudging. (Check out my one and only piece of beauty know-how!)

I have to say, I was dubious.  I’ve had manicures before, where the gals in the salon have said the nail varnish was, ‘chip proof’, or ‘smudge proof’, when in actual fact, within 48 hours at least one nail has had a chip in it, this Shellac thing sounded like another fake promise.

However, it came out on top! (I’m on day 10 and it’s still going strong, not so much as a single chip!)

For dinner that night, after all of the beautifying had finished (and we’d taken a wee trip to the Dollar Store en route home!) we headed to Dave and Busters.  We love it there, it’s pretty much an amusement arcade, you put credit on to a card, each game costs a different number of credits that you swipe off your card to play, you earn tickets and cash the tickets in for prizes.  It’s great fun (for little people and big people alike!)

The restaurant SUCKED.  We were waiting for ages to even get a seat (yet the place was empty) there was ONE guy serving the whole restaurant, I had to track down a manager to get some service (who didn’t even offer us a free drink while we waited FOREVER), our food was just ‘ok’ and our dessert fondue chocolate was burnt.  Disaster!!!

The games part of the night was fun though, Helena wasn’t sure about the place when we told her what we were taking her to, but, by the end of the night, she was whacking moles like the next gamer and she even hit the jackpot on the Monopoly game! LOL!

I really should have taken pictures for this post, I must get better about taking pictures going forward, I used to be such a good picture-taker!!