LBD, pinke shoes, and a wedding

Sadly our vacation has come to an end and we are headed back to Cali. The upside is that we get to see our fur children Myko, Neci, and Naava — yay

The impetus for our trip to FL was to attend my good friend Jenny’s wedding.  Jenny and I were one of the 5 or so girls in our whole Graduate program at Stanford and we bonded the first day.  She was a reader in my wedding 2 years ago.

That's her in the green dress

We jumped at the chance of celebrating her special day.

And since it was a “Black Tie Optional” affair, I knew the perfect occasion to where my new White House Black Market dress paired with faboosh hot pink peep-toes (which you bloggers encouraged me to buy):

New wedding duds

And may I say it was a whole lot more pleasant getting ready at this hotel than in the hotel from our disastrous weekend  2 weeks ago?

The afternoon wedding was lovely and in a gorgeous Church in Altamonte Springs, FL.  After the ~1 hr long ceremony we had a bit of time to kill before cocktail hour started so we did what anyone would do:

Snap a picture

Cheese (dress already wrinkled..boo)

And get some iced coffee at Sbux

Iced lattes needed in FL HEAT

Oh I should also mention that we stopped at DSW in our formal wear.  Why?  Why not?

Soon enough it was time for cocktails and introduction of the wedding party, which went straight into the first dance.

This is a favorite shot I got of the bride and groom just before their dance:

So happy!

And another at the end of their dance:

Love was in the air

Other highlights included a fabulous raspberry marble (cheesecake-like) wedding cake.  I spent 20 minutes hunting for a second piece to no avail.  I wanted MORE!  And around 9p, they had an ice cream bar with mini-milkshakes and cones.  I chose  peanut brittle cone that was to-die-for   Deee-lish.

Since we had to try to my Mom’s 45 minutes away we made it a shorter night, but made sure to get in a few good dances and hugs with the bride and groom.  Congrats Jenny and John!

What do you do when there is a break between the ceremony and reception?

Finds and Fails

It’s Monday again, and sadly I’m a bit excited for it.  Why?   Because I had the most boring weekend ever!  FAIL!  I don’t do well being bored.  I get antsy and cranky and inevitably eat way too much food .  Yeah so that sort of happened this weekend more than once.  Ugh.  Shame on me

Another FAIL?  Being super stoked all week to go out for Mexi food on Friday night to one of two places Palo Alto Sol or Fiesta del Mar, only to go elsewhere for convenience.  This wouldn’t normally be a bad idea, but when any restaurants idea of “vegetarian” is simply beans and cheese, I get a little disheartened.  Now I still have to find a way to get my Mexi fix…

As long as we’re on a roll, let’s hit you up with another FAIL.  This was my smoothie on Saturday before Bikram:

That doesn't look right...

You see, I have been wanting to incorporate Xantham gum into my smoothies to thicken them up since I don’t like to add a lot of extra calories via soy milk, Greek yogurt, etc.  I bought some Red Mills Xantham gum about a month ago and decided to bust it out.  I checked the back of the bag for serving size and it said 1 tbsp = 30 calories.  Alrighty then, 1 tbsp, it is!  Yeah, um, no.  My poor magic bullet was having a coronary trying to blend this sludge.  And it was so gelatinous.  DI-sgusting.  Oh and since I thought this was super weird, not only did I realize from other blogs that you should use 1 tsp per smoothie but Google also told me that “xantham gum in excess can cause runny diarrhea.”  Awesome.  Just want I want to worry about before 90 minutes of Bikram.  I stopped eating after only 3 bites an opted for oatmeal instead.  Can you blame me?

But this weekend wasn’t all bad.  I did FIND these guys:

New (to me) NuGo flavors

I sort of love NuGo’s nutrition bars.  My bestie got me hooked on them about a year ago and I’m still in love.  They are a pain in the arse to find, so I often will order them.  But Whole Foods does carry them so after our Mexi FAIL, we stopped across the street for this FIND.  I have a feeling the Pomegranate is going to pretty epic.  (Almond is the flavor behind it).  NuGo Dark, NuGo Mocha, and NuGO Mint are my current faves.

Remember when I showcased my Christian Louboutins back in October for Shoes-Day?  (No?  That’s okay ) Well I also really loved the dress I borrowed from my friend Mojan.

Kurt's wedding Oct 2010

Every girl needs a classic strapless black dress and she had the perfect one, thanks to White House Black Market.  I seriously coveted it!  Well, I decided to buck up and FIND myself one:

LBD

Here is a better shot from their website:

White House Black Market Ruffled Sweatheart dress

Even on the model it really doesn’t do the dress justice.  It is just so darn classic and cute!  And best part of it?  It was on sale for $80 from $170.  Now that’s a FIND!

So I may have ended up with more FAILs than FINDs this weekend, but I still say the good outweighed the bored bad.

What were your FINDs and FAILs of the weekend?

How the heck am I supposed to be using Xantham gum?