The imfamous Express dress

Back in July I was thumbing through one of my many magazine subscriptions (thank you airlines miles I can't redeem for flights) and came across two new fall dress fashions. They were striped dresses from Express and American Appearal. After collecting my beach garb I headed down Oak St. (pricey store row) to American Apperal. I was a huge fan of the clean navy and white striped dress. Sadly the store did not have the dress in stock. I also realized I'm not hipster enough to pull off AA. I wasn't in love with the Express dress, but I kept it in the back of my mind.

I came across another striped dress, thanks Pinterest, from j-crew that I also adored, however, when I looked at in the store it was shapeless and frumpy. Although I did love the exposed zipper details, I passed on it and instead purchased the Express navy and red dress.

Two weeks later this dress was everywhere. David found a Yahoo story that showed all the celebs who were sporting it. I couldn't believe my eyes. As cheesy as it sounds, I have always pitured myself in one of those who wore it best ads. So here's my interpretation of that ad.

Who wore it best



20%


80%

Belated Birthday/Road trip

August was a busy month for me. Between traveling for work, taking vacation to drive across country and celebrating a big birthday, I rarely had time to keep up on my social image.

The month started out with a trip to Baltimore for work. I arrived in the midst of the 100+ degree heat wave and Odacon. Don't ask. I was even treated to a cake made by Ace of Cakes. They are as good as they look on tv.

Next up, was my flight out to San Diego. David finished with his internship and we were heading back to Chicago via our Nissan Altima. Oh, how I missed you over the summer Altima, er I mean David.

Our travels led us to visit many friends on our drive up the coast of CA. It truly is magical. I can't believe I will be an official CA girl in one year.

Our first stop on the epic road trip was LA. A couple we knew in DC recently relocated there this summer. We hadn't seen them since we moved so it was great to catch up.



Next up was hanging out with Yohan our college friend. To round out our visit to LA David scored us a tour of FOX Studios. It was awesome. Our tour guide took us around the sets where tv shows are filmed, construction of tv sets and the costume department. This was by far the highlight of the trip. Here I am modeling "Magneto"'s helmet from the recent X-MEN film. Kevin Bacon has an extremely small head. I was the only one in our group who was able to sport the helmet. We didn't get to see the taping of any shows, but it was still cool.






After our fun adventure in LA we headed to SF to visit Dylan. We of course had to stop in Santa Barbara and give a shout out to Gus and Shawn. How could you ask for a better scenery than the ocean and mountains.




We spent a few days in SF touring the city and visiting Napa. I even fulfilled a childhood dream of visiting the Full House house. The outside is pretty run down, but it was still cool to see. We caught dinner with an old high school friend of David's.









After all the fun, we spent the next three days in the car racing back to Chicago. We stop in several spots along the way. Part of the drive were pretty and the rest were excruciatingly boring.




All in all it was a fun vacation. Now would I have rather spent the time at the beach or on a cruise, probably, but with David's crazy work schedule starting next year, it was fun to take a road trip like this for the last time.

To round out the month David and I celebrated our 30th birthdays here in Chicago with friends!

College Football

Every fall I pen a post dedicated to college football. Keeping the tradition alive here is my first one of the season.

My Tigers suffered their first loss of the season this weekend. After coming back from a 14 point deficiet we missed a game winning field goal that sent us into overtime. We lost when we couldn't convert the 4th down. It's a transition year and there are plenty of other growing pains to come. I'm optimistic that my team will improve over the season and pull out a win at Homecoming next month.

I looked for some old college football photos to post, but alas that was a before digital cameras were mainstream. So, you'll have to suffer through a couple current shots taken at the Northwestern game this weekend. At least one of my teams won. Can I claim a school as my team by association through marriage?

St. Charles Fire

A few weeks ago I was awakened in the early morning to a flurry of texts from my sister. With sleepy eyes I scrolled through the text and immediately was wide awake. My sister alerted me to the fact that the house next door to my parents burned overnight. I was worried about my parents and if there house had damaged. My family was really lucky - my parents and their house were untouched by the fire.

My heart immediately went out to the family next door. I quickly learned that five people were living in the house and the (step)father and 3 yr. old girl had perished. The mom and two sons were in critical condition. The oldest son had escaped the house by climbing out of the two story window. Several days later I would learn that the mom and second oldest son passed away. My heart went out to the little boy who lost everything in one week. At least his father was still alive.

One of the most heartwarming things was how the neighborhood came together in light of this tragedy. I went home over Labor Day and was able to see for myself the memorial set up my the community and the destruction the fire caused. I feel so lucky that my parents house was unharmed. If there had been windows on the side of the house where the fire started, my parents house could have sustained a considerable amount of damage.

Here is picture of my dad and niece the day after the fire. My parents were in the news several times that week with accounts of the fire.