Prom Dress Shopping

I've been on a mission. A mission to find a dress, and not just any dress.

A prom dress.

From the 80's.

Yea....that's right. The 80's.

I'd take the 90's if I had to, but I wanted the blinding hued taffeta, puffy-sleeved hideousness that is the 1980's prom dress.

Me and a few of my gal pals participated in a trivia night fundraiser for the Safe Zone chapter on our campus. Each team came up with their own name (which is dangerous) and there was a costume contest going on as well. We thought we'd 2-fer it and incorporate our costume with our team name so we needed prom dresses. Why you ask? Because our team name was "off like a prom dress." We didn't want new, fashionable, prom dresses because well it's a costume contest and there's nothing costumey about showing up to a wine bar in a trendy prom dress. We would just look like creepy cougars who were trying to cling to our youth.We wanted outlandish.

So Melissa and I made a trip to one of the local Goodwill retail stores to find the perfect dresses. I've donated a lot to Goodwill but this was my first trip in to shop. While there were some truly heinous articles of clothing, I must say Goodwill had some really nice stuff too. As a matter of fact, many of the prom dresses we saw were too current and wouldn't be very funny. The dress selection wasn't near as vintage as we'd liked but we found some glittered, too-short stunners.

Then my husband was forced bribed to join me later that same week to check out a few other Goodwill stores (because there are 5 Goodwill retail stores within a 20 mile radius of our house) Please note there are only 2 Targets within the same area. Problem??? I think so.

And that's when I saw it.

the pic doesn't do the pinkness justice!

*Cue Roxette's "The Look"*

The fuchsia, puffy-shouldered sleeves called to me from across the store.

The giant side bow screamed "Put one exactly like this in your crimped, teased side ponytail!!"

Cut to me getting in the car, grinning ear to ear, 7 dollars and 99 cents lighter and 1 hideous dress closer to the costume contest prize. (Which at this point could be a free root canal for all I know, I just know we are winning.)

So the night arrived, and I was stoked. I even make jankity homemade wrist corsages out of fake flowers, gorilla glue, and a coke zero box!

We got dressed and headed out to the car. The neighbor kids were selling lemonade on the corner...I think we scared them.  We got to Crush and walked in........

and NO ONE.......not a single. other. person. had on a costume!!! We told ourselves "It's still a little early, the costume people will come."

Nope.

We were it. Turns out we didn't win the trivia contest...actually I think we may have finished dead last. Obviously, we won the costume contest. Here's our trophy.

Our dignity however, was no where to be found.

And now for my Mister Rogers moment: Even though we were the only people dressed up, it's great to know that I have awesome friends willing to drink a glass of wine and look ridiculous with me! Love ya Mel and Steph!

Anyone in the market for a fuchsia, puffy-sleeved dress? I'll ship it to ya...fo' free!

Cheers!

A Birthday weekend list

Daniel's parents and grandparents were in town this weekend to visit and celebrate Daniel's birthday with us. I love, love, love it when family comes to town!  Daniel's family always keeps me laughing so here are just a few of the one of a kind moments from the weekend!

• Took the fam to the coast. I mentioned I wanted to stop at Fuddy Duddy candy shop to restock my fudge supply. (I usually get 1 little half pound box every couple of months when I happen to be in or drive through Depoe Bay.) Mumo (Dan's grandmother) took charge of the ordering, and we left with literally over 3 pounds of fudge, a bag of caramel corn, turtles, and some kind of peppermint bark. Have I mentioned how much I love Mumo?
• Our baseball team played a 4 game home series this weekend, we all attended the 1st game on Friday and got shellacked 1-10 , then we shut out the opposing team the next three games 1-0, 2-0, 10-0. The in-laws and I were not in attendance at the last 3 games. I don't think Daniel is allowing family at any more home baseball games this year.
• Had an amazing dinner at the one "fancy" dinner place in our town. It's friggin' delish.
• Window shopped in Newport and didn't buy a single thing! (If you know me, Mumo, and my MIL you know that's a world record of some sort and you should all be worried that the end of time is near.)
• Ate an amazing lunch at a yummy restaurant in Nye Beach. I had a ham, brie and apple sandwich on toasted rye with some homemade Dijon-y spread. Sounds crazy but tastes like creamy, sweet, salty, toasty heaven!
• Drove to Woodburn to go to the Tulip festival, paid 5 bucks to get in and drove out. No joke. It was decided that it was too muddy to get out of the car and no one wanted to ruin their shoes. I had my camera and lenses I was ready for a photo paradise....  here's my picture of the Tulip festival from the back corner seat of the Tahoe. *womp waaaaaa*

• Had the best scallops I've tasted since moving to Oregon (do you see a trend with the food?) at Daniel's birthday dinner. Halfway through our meal the Governor of Oregon and his gal were seated at the table right next to us, and I spent the rest of dinner wondering if it'd be creepy to buy them a beer. The answer is yes, so I restrained myself.
• We locked Mumo in the bathroom. Well actually, Mumo locked Mumo in the bathroom. We thought the door to the guest bathroom was broken or jammed when she couldn't get out. Turns out it was just locked.
•  Due to our stature,age, and having been born women, my MIL and I were defaulted to the Tahoe's 3rd row seat every time we went somewhere. I believe we were almost forgotten about at at least 2 stops. But we had a blast - we laughed more than two adult ladies should :)
• We drove around every neighborhood in town for "future home purchase parental approval". (try saying that 3 times fast). Oh, and for those of you who don't live 'round these parts....every neighborhood = 6 neighborhoods. 
• Went shopping at the outlet mall. Daniel's dad drew the short straw and was sent in to the Coach store to drag me and my MIL out. Lucky for him we were heading out of the store as he was coming in.
• Took the family wine tasting and once again - we left with enough wine to liquor up a herd of elephants.
• Sunday night we went to see Source Code. We spent 1 hour and 34 minutes watching the movie, and 3 hours and 45 minutes trying to figure out what the heck we just saw.

Things you learned about our family:

1.) We buy wine and candy like we're stocking up for a nuclear meltdown.

2.) We eat out. A lot.

3.) We are never at a loss for laughter
4.) We each gained 90 lbs this weekend.
5.) I never got a picture of everyone together so you get to look at inanimate objects.

Weekend Getaway... and a lantern

As promised here, this post is to fill you in on our crazy awesome weekend in Lincoln City, Oregon about a week ago. LC is only about an hours drive from our house so we snuck outta work a smidge early on Friday and headed to the coast.


We checked in to our sweet suite at Beachfront Manor complete with unbelievable views of the pacific ocean and a hot tub on the balcony overlooking the water. We were hoping to see a storm as we've heard it's quite an amazing sight, but the weekend was clear and sunny which totally worked too. We really enjoyed getting to stroll along the beach.






Great views from our balcony





I love how well you can still see the moon in the mornings!




I could wake up to this forever




Tree turned beach seating



After breakfast Sat. morning we set out down Highway 101 about 15 min. to Depoe Bay in hopes of seeing a whale. Totally didn't happen. I'm sure if we peered through binoculars for 5 hours we might have spotted one, but we both have attention spans of about 20 min for that kind of thing. Instead we walked around town taking pics of the insane waves crashing against the rocks and swung by Fuddy Duddy Fudge and left with over a pound of fudge.  (That alone made the day successful in my book!)



The spouting horn would always leave a rainbow after the spray


We headed to the Jennifer Sears Glass Studio and worked with a glass artist to blow our own glass bowl. We got to do quite a bit of the work considering how dangerous putting two goofballs like us around 2,000 degree heat and sharp objects. Now that I think about it, I'm not only surprised we made it home with a cool glass bowl, I'm shocked we have all of our fingers intact. 




our color selection





Making the opening of the bowl. I don't know how she didn't burn her hands off!





The finished product in our house!



We finished glassblowing more quickly that we'd expected so we stopped at a cute antique store to kill some time before dinner. As soon as the little bell dinged as we entered the old house- turned- antique shop, Daniel instantly regretted suggesting the idea. My eyes were the size of golf balls. You see I've never been in an antique store before - I was under the assumption that it was a bunch of old broken crap mixed with mothballs and weird dishes. I was only partially right. There were a lot of weird dishes.

I've mentioned that I wanted to purchase less things for the sake of filling space and start purchasing only things I love, that represent us, that have a story. So when I saw this I fell in love.

Not only would it look great in our house but no matter where in the world we end up 30 years from now, this Embury lantern made between 1920 and 1952 will be the fun "find" from our weekend adventure. Not to mention it's a City of Portland marked lantern!!

After our fabulous find, we headed to Humble Pie, home of the best pizza I've had since moving to Oregon. It's a small, quirky restaurant with only 3 dining tables. You get a discount ($1 off I think) for every item of tie-dye you are wearing (we paid full price), and they have games and books for you to enjoy while you wait  for your pie. Oh- and did I mention they sell giant cream puffs?!?!? Yeah, like bigger than softball sized cream puffs. So. So. Good.  

It was glorious!

We had an amazing time and can't wait to go on our next Oregon weekend adventure....skiing!