MS Southern Belles in Natchez

Rosalie is the antebellum mansion that the Southern Magnolia Belles toured yesterday and I will show you more of it on Sightseeing Saturday.

I am linking with the following:

Blue Monday which is hosted by Sally of http://smilingsally.blogspot.com/

Mosaic Monday, which is hosted by Mary at http://dearlittleredhouse.blogspot.com/


Marty's Tabletop Tuesday at http://astrollthrulife.blogspot.com/
Lady Katherine Teatime Tuesday at http://ladykatherineteaparlor.blogspot.com/
Tea Cup Tuesday at http://www.marthasfavorite.com/

WandaLee's http://theplumedpen.blogspot.com/


The long awaited day came. It was raining so hard and I was afraid nobody would show up.

I was worried that nobody would eat all these food that I prepared. I set a buffet in the kitchen thinking we would have more people. It was already set when some bloggers cancelled and I did not want to undo it and set a tablescape in the dining room.

I I made Thai beef salad

and Thai shrimp and chicken toast. You would think I am Thai fixing all these but I am not. Thanks to a good Thai friend, Nit, who unfortunately moved to Alaska yesterday, for teaching me how to prepare a lot of these dishes. In addition to these, I also made Asian noodles, crab omelet and baked chicken stuffed with crawfish.

For dessert, we had flan, cookies baked by my daughter who is visiting from Florida and mangoes. We also had coffee, Whittard of Chelsea pear and guava tea and mango with passion fruit tea. Ooops, the other tea pot is not there but that's because I was mixing the pear & guava tea.

I was so happy to get a knock on the door to find Lady Katherine, who was so pretty in her white dress, and her husband Terrie. And then a call for directions from Vicky, who arrived shortly after with her hubby, Bobby. D arrived a few minutes later. Can you tell I have been gardening a lot from my tanned skin?

From L to R:

Katherine (http://ladykatherineteaparlor.blogspot.com)

D (http://sunnysideofthesunporch.blogspot.com)

Yours Truly

Vickie (http://paintordig.blogspot.com)

We had some bloggers who cancelled at the last minute due to unavoidable circumstances but we were determined to make the most of it and have a fun day. And we did!

We talked, ate and laughed and talked, ate and laughed!!

After lunch, the weather cleared up a bit and while the gents stayed in getting to know each other, we ladies toured the garden.

Here we are looking down at my secret garden. Do you see how wet the deck still was?

We took pictures on the bridge going to the gazebo. I am not really that much shorter but I was at the end of the bridge, lol.

We went down to the secret garden. Do you see the sign behind me on the left? Paula of http://castleandcottage.blogspot.com/ custom made it for me and I love it!

Terrie had to buy something from Lousiana and Bobby kept him company. John in another vehicle led us to do a little sightseeing. We drove through a few antebellum mansions, cemetery, the Basilica and then stopped to browse through some antique shops downtown.

We were going to tour Monmouth but unfortunately, they couldn't give us one when we got there because there was a wedding going on. But we did not waste a trip cause we took pictures in their beautiful courtyard.

We went to tour the Rosalie instead, which I thought was a very good choice because of its beauty and historical background. But I won't show you more about that now. I'll save the other pictures and descriptions for Sightseeing Saturday.

There they are, the Southern Mississippi Magnolia Belles! All we needed were our southern belle gowns so just imagine us in them:-)

In spite of the heat and humidity, we all had a lot of fun. We went back home for some cold drinks and then we opened presents. Thanks for my wonderful presents, sweet ladies! I love them!

The belles all got a set of blue Royal Albert napkin rings and we all plan to use them at the same time for a tablescape

Vicky, who is a very talented painter and horticulturist brought one of her gorgeous paintings for a door price and Lady Katherine won it. I had a cobalt blue basket for drawing too and D won it.

Unfortunately, it was getting late and some of them drove 3 and half hours to get here and therefore had to drive that long to go back home, so we did not get a chance to go swimming. We really had a great time getting together and hopefully we can all meet again at least once a year and maybe next time, more bloggers will join us. I want to thank everyone who came especially knowing that they all drove quite a ways to get here.


Thanks to our wonderful hosstesses for these fun memes and thanks to all of you for coming by and sharing this great moment with us.