Wedding dress stores

Note:  This post is not sponsored and I am giving 100% of my own opinions.

I had also stated in the post, where I announced that daughter ‘A’ had gotten engaged, that my Father-in-law had lived with Parkinson’s for many years.

Due to that fact, when daughter ‘A’ was searching for places to go wedding dress shopping she was interested in going to the Glamour Closet store in San Francisco, CA since each year, a portion of Glamour Closet’s profits will be donated to foundations dedicated to finding a cure for Parkinson’s.

http://glamourcloset.com/closet/html/about.asp

In April, daughter ‘A’ and I made a very quick trip to the north end of the Bay Area.  We decided to swing by the  Glamour Closet store and just look around (we had already promised the bridesmaids that we would go dress shopping with them).

Well, daughter ‘A’ found her wedding dress!  No photos of it will be seen until after the wedding, but I will say that the family of another bride-to-be gasped when the curtain was opened.

When the store clerks were told about daughter ‘A’ ‘s grandfather they said that he had a hand in her finding that dress for multiple reasons and we agree:

• the dress was dropped off on a Friday and we were there the following day
• the dress was a sample and had never even been tried on by anyone else
• the dress was smaller that the sizes they usually carry (it needs a couple of tucks taken and a lot taken off the bottom, but we are not surprised by that)
• the cost of the dress was less than her budget

So, if you know someone getting married and you live or are visiting the North Beach in San Francisco, West Hollywood in Los Angeles, River North in Chicago or Chelsea in New York areas I would be grateful if you check out the Glamour Closet store.

I have no connection to this store, but I love, due to first hand knowledge, that they also want to find a cure to Parkinson’s and are donating money to the cause.

Do you have a future wedding in your family?   Later – Heather

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Last two months….

In some ways I know it has been two months since my last post went live, but in other ways it has gone by fast.

Some highlights / lowlights,  which will have separate posts in the future:

• I went to Italy with our daughter ‘A’!  Was Northern Italy, in Winter, on my bucket list?  No, but she had to go see a vendor and drive a rental car around Milan and to a town about two hours away so I went with her.
• Our daughter ‘A’ got engaged!  The future son-in-law ‘D’ came and talked to her dad while daughter ‘A’ and I were in Italy.  (Our daughter said that ‘D’ had to get her dad’s blessing, which I thought was sweet.)
• Italy or major jet lag ‘brain fog’ is a real thing.  If/when I travel to Europe, etc again I want to stop in the middle (New York, etc) and take a mini-vacation there for a few days before I continue on.  The nine hour time difference was killing me (going and coming home).

What have been some of your highlights / lowlights from the last two months?

 

Later – Heather

Animal Ark in winter – That is in Nevada?

Animal Ark is north of Reno, NV.  We had been there in the summer, but never in winter.  We found out that Animal Ark was opened for two weekends in the winter of 2017 .

The Reno, NV area of Nevada had received a lot of snow in the winter of 2016- 2017.  At one point Animal Ark didn’t know if they would be even able to open on Martin Luther King weekend since there might have been too much snow!

We decided to go up and we had a blast, but boy were we cold!  It was so neat to see the animals be active instead of hiding in the shade like they do when it is hot.

The actual bears were hibernating.

 

Bobcat (photo courtesy of my husband)

 

We were seeing a lot of cottontail rabbit ‘remains’ in the enclosures.  We were able to watch this jaguar catch this rabbit.  The rabbit ran right for the jaguar!  The staff thought it was since there was fresh straw, etc put out in the enclosures.

Jaguar with a fresh catch  (photo courtesy of my husband)

 

Here is the website for Animal Ark:  http://animalark.org/

If you are interested in going it is a good idea to either check out their posts on Facebook or check out their website a head of time.

Until later – Heather

 

 

 

Emerald Bay Painting

I went to a Paint and Sip put on by the same business, but located in a local restaurant with a group of friends from Zumba.

I felt more comfortable doing this painting and even had an idea of how to do the steps before they were explained.

Emerald Bay Lake Tahoe

I really like how this one turned out also.

Have you done this before?

Later – Heather

Red Rock Canyon – That is in Nevada?

At the end of September the husband had a short work conference in Las Vegas so I tagged along and we turned it into a mini vacation.  Most people think of gambling and shows when they think of Las Vegas, but since we live in Northern Nevada we didn’t do any of that.  After spending our required 1.5 days on the Strip, for his conference, we got a hotel away from the Strip and went exploring.

So, I found the Hampton Inn & Suites Las Vegas – Red Rock / Summerlin.   It was is on the west side of Las Vegas and near the ‘loop’ road so I knew we could get to the areas that we planned on going without too much difficulty.

Years ago we visited Las Vegas and Red Rock Canyon was a way outside of  town.  Well, that is not the case anymore.  Las Vegas has grown a lot since the last time we had visited.  It turns out the hotel I selected was 11 miles from Red Rock Canyon.

So, in the afternoon, after the conference ended we went and explored Red Rock Canyon.  There is now a nice visitor center and we drove the scenic route and took some photos.  Since it was later in the day we didn’t go on any long hikes.

Here are a few photos.  Las Vegas is visible in the background of the upper right photo.

Red Rock Canyon outside Las Vegas

So, when was a the last time you visited Las Vegas and did you go see anything besides The Strip?

Later – H

 

That is in Nevada? series

Since I know most people think of desert, dirt, sand and the gambling, etc of Las Vegas I figured it was a good time to start a series showing some of the other side of Nevada.

For example, did you know there are tall mountains, running streams, wild horses, lakes, fishing, green grass, ranches, farm land and more in Nevada?

So, about once a month I will do a post of a different place in Nevada.  Some will be a couple of photos and others will have the history, etc behind the place.

Even though we have lived in Nevada over 20 years some of these places we hadn’t visited until the last few years.  And, yes, I even thought the central part of Nevada was mostly dirt and sand before we went out there.

So, I will start the series with this photo:

Hot Air Balloon over golf course, Gardnerville, NV

A few years ago my husband gave me a Hot Air Balloon ride as my birthday present. If you know me you know I love watching hot air balloons, but I am afraid of heights.  I can tell you that being in the basket under the balloon was magical.    I would love to do another ride sometime since I probably would enjoy it more now that I know what to expect.

This photo is over the golf course in Gardnerville, NV and those are the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the background.  We took our ride in May since the ground is still cold in the morning so they can get the lift.  This was definitely a bad year for snow fall since there was hardly any snow left on Job’s Peak.

So, have you traveled to Nevada?  What are your favorite places to visit?

Later – H

 

Why do you live where you do?

In June, Nevada (and at least California) are having elections for local supervisors, etc.  In our area it is becoming clear that the people running for office are either for big growth or against it (i.e. want the area to stay like it is).  In trying to decide who to vote for I am realizing I have to decide why we live here and how/if we want it to change in the next 5 to 10 years.

We moved here since it was a semi-rural area with a technology company where we could get jobs.  Over the years we have had the opportunity to move to different ‘big’ cities for jobs (in different states).  We have always decided it was not best for our family with one reason being we didn’t want to live in a ‘big’ city (and deal with everything related to it – higher crime, more traffic, potentially higher taxes, etc).

Nevada is becoming known as a potential place to move technology and other companies (Apple Inc. and Tesla Motors Inc. either have plants near Reno, NV or are in the process of building them now).  Overall, I am happy to see this happen, but I think it needs to be carefully thought out.  Not everyone wants to have their rural area changed into a ‘big’ city.

Where we live we have to drive to another town if we want to do major shopping  in person.  We knew this when we moved here and I can at least say it has gotten easier.  Besides, a lot of the shopping can be done online and shipped to your house if you really don’t care to see the items in person.

Maybe it is just me, but it seems that when people move to a new area they want to change it to be similar to where they just left – i.e. want closer shopping, want specific restaurants to come in, etc, but they don’t want the things they didn’t like (more crime, higher taxes, more traffic, crowds, etc).  Well, after living in the same semi-rural area for many years I can tell you that as more shopping, restaurants, housing areas, etc come in you get more traffic, crime, etc. (For example, it is amazing how many articles in the local papers are about people stealing items from the local Walmart stores.)

I know people that drive 50+ miles to be able to live in a smaller area, but work in a larger city and I know people who have done the opposite (live in the larger city and travel to get to the smaller area for a job they want).   It just depends upon what you want and sometimes where you have extended family.

So, why do you live where you do?  Did you move there because of family, a job or what the area was like?  Do you have plans on staying there long term?   Are you happy with the way the area is changing (or not changing)?  If not, maybe it is time to voice your concerns and get involved.

Later – H

First eleven tips for Hawaii (or other locations that require you to fly)

My family finally got to go on a much needed vacation.  We have been home for just over 24 hours and I am happy that I have gotten two loads of laundry already.  I figured I would post some tips that came in really handy for us (in no special order).

1. Carry on luggage – Each family member was able to travel with one carry on suitcase and a backpack.  Unless you have fancy events planned you will find that you will spend most of your time in your swimsuits and shorts anyways.  But, at the same time you will sometimes find that the airlines will gate check your suitcases to your final destination (that happened to us each way).  (We even had space in our bags to bring home new beach towels and a few other new items.)
2. Roll your clothes – If you aren’t on Pinterest you might not have seen the posts that by rolling your clothes you can store more in a drawer, etc.  It really does work so I would suggest you try it next time.
3. Detangler spray & TSA liquid rules – Each person is able to take a quart-sized bag with your liquids/creams as long as each original container is less than 3 oz.  The humidity and salt water makes it so we get more knots in our hair so this time I put some detangler spray in a small bottle and took some with us.
4. Bug spray – We usually go hiking when travel and this trip wasn’t any different.  So, we bought a small container of bug spray and took it with us (in the quart-sized bag with our other liquids).
5. Breakfast in the room – The hotel we stayed at this time had a Keurig coffee maker and a mini fridge (no microwave).   We bought instant oatmeal at the grocery store and made it for breakfast most mornings.  (See #6, #7 and #11)
6. Metal fork and spoon – I packed one for each family member.  These came in very handy.  Note: You are not able to take sharp knives in the carry on luggage so I took a couple of plastic knives.
7. Plastic bowls – Since we had room in our suitcases (by not taking too many clothes and rolling what I did take) I was able to pack plastic bowls for each family member.  These came in very handy for breakfast and for eating pie, etc (see #11).
8. Plastic Ziploc bags – I took a few new quart-sized ones and a couple of gallon-sized ones.  These were very useful!  (One thing we did daily was put ice in a bag and used it as an ice pack in our ice chest.)
9. Plastic, see-through water bottle – You can take an empty water bottle through security.  We filled it with water at the airports and put ice inside of it when we traveled and it helped keep our snack foods and drinks cold.
10. Ice chest – The last few trips we have been able to put a collapsible ice chest in one of the suitcases.  We used this to keep our drinks and snacks cold for when we went to the beach or driving around the island.
11. Grocery store – Usually when we arrive we look for a grocery store so we can buy some food.  This time we lucked upon a local grocery store chain (Tamura’s Market) which definitely had cheaper prices than the big mainland chain that we found the first day.  We were even able to find locally made (Ted’s Bakery) pie.  The Macadamia Nut Cream Pie was really good!

So, hopefully these help you out and they will come in handy the next time we fly somewhere on vacation.

Later – H

One of my favorite blogs #1

I saw that another blog posted about one of their favorite blogs recently and realized I would like to start doing it also.

So, I only started following blogs a few years ago.   One of the first blogs I found was  ‘While Wearing Heels’   http://whilewearingheels.blogspot.com/

I wasn’t even sure what post first caught my attention so I just went looking on her blog to figure it out.  I think I first found one of Amy’s posts on Pinterest.com and was hooked from then on.

Some of the first ones that I pinned:

a) Framed postcards – I have been sending the daughter / us postcards from vacations for years.  I usually put the postcard in the scrapbook (using removable photo ‘ears’ so we can take it out and read the back), but I loved the idea of actually framing the writing on the postcard and an associated photo.

http://whilewearingheels.blogspot.com/2013/04/frame-personalized-postcard-souvenirs.html

b) United Scraps of America – I love this idea, but I plan on making it special for us.  I want to make a wall hanging and fill in the states as they are visited.  There are many that would be filled in right away between traveling for work and for fun, but it would be fun to figure out which states are still on our ‘bucket list’ (and to figure out if we can find  a reason to visit those states).

http://whilewearingheels.blogspot.com/2012/09/united-scraps-of-america-grand-finale.html

c) Steampunk Art – I thought this idea was so cool and when the Father-In-Law was selling old pieces of tractors, etc I saw piece that would be perfect.  I still have the piece and need to get it finished so I can get it displayed.

http://whilewearingheels.blogspot.com/2012/03/switching-gears-steampunk-art.html

So, what are some of your favorite blogs?

Later – H

Happy Memorial Day!

I want to wish everyone a Happy Memorial Day.

After just coming back from a trip that included Gettysburg, PA and Washington, D.C. (Korean War Memorial, etc) history (when it comes to war, etc) has become more alive for my family.

Sometimes just reading about something in a book doesn’t have as much as an affect.

Oh, and I will write posts about our trip later.  I am surprised how much we saw and did in ten days.

Later – H