Minneaps - Day of Lucky #2

So where was I? Oh yes, Minneaps - Day 2: Mall of America

The day started out beautifully - sunny, and warm with a breeze...I even got a quick workout in (What?! Who said that?! haha. I've changed). Then we were off to the mall...

I won't bore you with the minute details of each and every store I visited, but suffice it to say my Day of Lucky continued and I got some very nice stuff...

Urban Outfitters is a really cool store to visit - I don't look at the clothes so much as the other fun things they have there. There's a great selection of books and albums, and cool little toys (like a lot of KidRobot stuff) and other novelty items like Moustache bandaids or PB and J key covers, or magnets that look like Iphone apps. I love junk like that! For guys they have a really funny and electic selection of t-shirts...like these ones:

(But we didn't buy any this time...but yeah, aren't they funny?! I love them)

Anyhoo...this summer I also seem to be very into harem pants, so I bought another pair...I hope they're still in this fall (lol). I also got a dress from Gap, who happened to be having an extra 30% off the lowest price sale. It ended up being...$5.58. Yeah. For realz. And it's a nice dress - like, something I can wear to a party even. I love shopping in the States.

For lunch we decided to eat at Crave in the mall. The last time we were here we had this shaved rib-eye pizza that was SO good. So of course my husband had this restaurant on his must-eat list this trip. (I had checked the menu online previously and I didn't see this pizza on it, but I didn't have the heart to tell him that it might be gone...plus I didn't know for sure if it was gone, so I figured we could ask when we got there...) So when we went he scanned the menu and couldn't find it...uh-oh. So he asked and of course it wasn't there anymore but he did end up having this steak sandwich which he was more than satisfied with.

I just had some chicken mushroom fettucine alfredo pasta which I guess my husband didn't deem good enough to take a picture of (haha) but was delish nonetheless. We walked off our meal with more shopping but this time for gifts...

And then, in our quest to pretty much eat everything off the must-eat list we had a little shnackeroonie at The Magic Pan. This place is in the middle of the mall and always has a line-up of people because they have really yummy crepes. They have savoury ones such as Chicken Divan or Ham & Cheese, but we needed to satisfy our sweet tooth so we ordered a strawberry crepe, which was filled with strawberries, and whipped cream and the banana nutella crepe which was bursting with bananas and drizzled with nutella and topped with whipped cream as well. Now normally, I don't care for bananas. Ask any one of my girlfriends at work, who usually have bananas at break. Seriously, they all eat bananas at break. They all tell me that bananas are great and they're pretty much the best fruit because they have everything nutritious in them and they're cheap. I really just can't stand the texture or how they sound when people are eating them...or even the smell. Seriously. If you have bananas (my husband always buys them for himself) and you put them close to bread or anything like that, it starts to smell like bananas. Bleh. No tanks. Don't get me wrong, I do love a good banana bread, now and then...though for awhile I was totally turned off from banana bread because my mom made it constantly...because our bananas would get totally ripe and no one would eat them and so she'd of course make banana bread...etc, etc...How the hell did this post turn into a rant about bananas? ANYWAYS...

so the banana nutella crepe is one banana thing that I will deign to eat :) It's delish. I think it's because of the combo of nutella, crepe and whipped cream though.

Again, he didn't bother taking a pic of my strawberry crepe. But it's prolly cuz I demolished it immediately.

After this sugar high, I crashed quickly and needed a nap, stat! So we went back to the hotel so I could sleep for a bit...shopping and eating is hard work I guess. I woke up to "I Love You, Man" on tv. We hadn't really seen it, but it looked pretty funny, so we watched it for a bit before leaving for...what else? Dinner. What a life, huh?

We decided to go for sushi at a place not too far from our hotel that we'd previously eaten at before. We lucked out because they were having a special of 1/2 price sushi for the summer! Normally their speciality rolls were around 15.00, so 1/2 price was a pretty good deal! And we weren't disappointed. It was great quality and tasted wonderful. Mmmmm....sushi...

So another great end to the day...we were hoping "I Love You, Man" would be on again (since TBS loves to repeat their movies) to make the day perfect, but alas it was not to be. Oh well, perhaps tomorrow...

2 more days of eating and shopping...to be continued...



Minneaps - Day of Lucky #1...

Wow, this week has gone by pretty quickly! It’s already Friday*! I can’t believe it’s already been a week since we left for Minneaps!

Well as I mentioned in the previous post – I just came back from a great shopping and eating trip from Minneaps. We usually make this trek out there every year for (what else?!) SHOPPING! (Although I don’t think we made it out last year – then again, there were more than enough shopping trips to other destinations!)

Anyways as always, we leave early in the morning, drive through Grand Forks, top up the gas in Fargo and drive to Albertville for our first shopping stop before the big Mall.

Albertville has been hit or miss for me in the past but this time, it was pretty much all hits! It was a good pre-cursor for the shopping weekend. Our first stop was Under Armour, where normally I just let my husband shop, but this time, I actually picked up some workout gear as well. Pretty good deals too. I also went to the Coach outlet which is always bumpin! There I got 3 scarves which were 50% off + an extra 30% off! Dirt. I also got this really cute, “3 necklaces in 1”. It has the look of layered necklaces, but with only one clasp (duh. LOL). The reason I liked it though was because it had a bird as pendant on it. It felt kind of Marc Jacobs-y. Then I picked up some boyfriend jeans, work capris and a "Rolling Stones" t-shirt from Gap Outlet. I also got a really nice “I’m just chillin” kind of summer sweater from Banana Republic outlet which I imagine wearing on a cool summer night when there’s a nice breeze with some loose but tailored capri/harem-y pants, with gold bangles and gladiator sandals…Oh, and guess what? While in line waiting to pay for the aforementioned sweater, I found some nice gold bangles in the clearance bin…They were marked 11.99. Which I suppose wasn’t too bad for a bunch of gold bangles…Then I saw another set of matte gold bangles, they weren’t tagged with a bright orange clearance sticker, but I liked them better and since they were in the bin, I figured I’d ask if they were on sale too. And guess what? They were regular price…but regular price jewelry was on for 40% off…so they ended up being even CHEAPER than the clearance bangles!! Haha. Good deals. A good start to my “Day of Lucky”.

After that, we decided that we were gonna go and check out the Nordstrom Rack in Maple Grove…we weren’t exactly sure where this was, but my sister said it was before you get to Bloomington. We saw the Maple Grove pkwy sign and figured it must be close. We went to the Walmart to ask if anyone there knew where it was. First let me say this: US Walmarts are more like Costco. It was HUGE. With giant barrels of cheeseballs stacked to the ceiling, a full-on supermarket with deli, produce and meat departments, and cashiers as far as the eye could see...Anyways, we asked a couple of the workers there if they knew where Nord Rack was…and they did not. Finally, someone in Customer Service told us it was across from the AMC theatre. So I programmed AMC theatre into our GPS and it took us straight there. Maple Grove was quite a nice area with different restaurants. We found the Nord Rack (across from the theatre). Unfortunately the selection wasn’t that great – though we did come out with these awesome Lacoste hand towels. I know. Bougie right? Haha. Oh we fancy huh.

We decided to eat at Houlihan’s (we’d eaten there in Chicago and remembered they had some good apps). I was really wanting the Jumbo Stuffed Mushrooms as an app and my husband tried to discourage it because he was having the Burger 72 which sounded like it was gonna have a Jumbo Stuffed Mushroom on it, among other things. He figured it would have the same flavor profile. Anyways, obviously I got my way and we got those stuffed mushrooms, which were delish btw. My husband was all “We should trade burgers since you love those mushrooms so much. But I was confident with my order. I ordered their “Cheesy Royale Yum Yum Good Times Burger” Unfortunately, this apparently translates to “Big Mac”. Yup. Scammed!!! My husband’s burger on the other hand…AWESOME. I shoulda taken the trade. Now he was lording it over me enjoying every fricken bite. Jerk. Note to self: If there are 6 words needed to name your burger, don’t order it.

So after this, it was on to our hotel. We had booked on Hotwire.com, which in the past I was always weary to book on, but after checking and reading the reviews of the hotels that we were gonna book,  I figured, well if it says “4-star hotel” for 69.67 a night, it can’t be that bad? Even if you don’t know where you’re gonna end up staying until you book it, it’s 4-stars. Plus we were only gonna be away for 3 nights anyways. It turned out to be perfect. We ended up at the new Hilton in West Bloomington. Excellent location, great room, good parking, nice gym and check-in was effortless. I’m using Hotwire all the time from now on.

Once we were settled in we went to the mall...Ah. "I love the smell of commerce in the morning" (Actually it was evening, but whatevs). We figured we'd scope out the shopping sitch and come back the next morning with our plan of attack...but as I mentioned earlier, it was already my Day of Lucky, which meant "If it's there, buy it now". So I did. I got this wonderful, tulle skirt from H&M that is totally "Carrie" and I can't wait to wear it!! I also got a nice top from the regular Banana Republic store which happened to be having a 40% off the lowest price sale! Then I picked up some Marc by Marc Jacobs aviators from Solstice. Not bad for only scoping the first floor! :) My husband decided I had done enough damage for one day, so we left and went to find his fave fried chicken place in the world: Popeye's.

We found our way there and picked up the chicken and cajun rice and just brought it back to the hotel to eat. Deep fried, crunchified goodness. It was a great way to end the first day of our trip....

To be continued...

*I started writing this post on Friday but ran out of time...

Another New Fave!

I know, I know, I'm completely delinquent in posting. I'm a terrible blogger. I don't even really have time to write this right now...but I had to tell you guys, I'm obsessed with a new JLo song (again!). Actually I happened upon it by accident sort of.

Okay - well I've told you how when I like a song, I pretty much "kill it" (my husband's words, not mine) by playing it 24/7 on repeats...Well I have the new JLo cd, so I've pretty much programmed it to play Track 3 ("I'm Into You"), then Track 1 ("On the Floor"), then Track 3 again...on repeat. Unfortunately, since my husband is paranoid, he always unplugs my cd player. Like EVERY morning before we leave for work. So every morning I have to re-program the tracks so I can have these tunes blasting while I get ready for work. Anyways, one day, I was a little behind schedge and so when I went to program my tracks, I did it quickly and wasn't really paying attention. Well I guess I programmed Track 2, which happens to be called "Good Hit". Since I still had to curl my hair, I didn't have time to try and re-program...which forced me to listen to this song over and over...and suddenly, I started to like it, nay, LOVE it.

It's so good - so much attitude!! This immediately became the new 24/7 track for me...you need to hear it. Here's a little teaser video of it I found on Youtube...

Anyways, I hope you love it as much as I do. Or not, don't matter - it's still AWESOME (high voice).

Also, I will try and start posting again...just kinda busy. But I did just come back from Minneaps so I will have to tell you guys all about my trip shopping and eating adventures!!

Later dudes!

"What about Prom Blaine?!" CLASSIC.

Last night "Pretty in Pink" was on TV. And as always, I got sucked into watching it. I have probably seen this movie hundreds of times. Everytime I happen to catch it though, I get mesmerized and can't seem to change the channel. It's like this for certain movies for me namely: You've Got Mail ("I was in....Van..cou...ver"), Sleepless in Seattle ("Harses, harses"), Selena (Selenas!), A Walk To Remember ("Are you seducible?") and The Core ("Your kung-fu is not strong") and lately The Hangover (there are too many good lines, that I can't even just pick one!) Then, at Christmas - Sound of Music, at Easter - The Ten Commandments and whenever a network decides it needs to fill 4 hours - Titanic.

When these movies are on, no matter what, even if there is something else to watch - even something new, I'm watching them. I don't know why. I own all of these movies on DVD (yet, I don't think I've ever watched any of them on DVD). My husband is always "Uh, hello, you have this movie, why don't you watch it so you don't have to see commercials?!" I know, right? I mean, the commercials are numerous and even interrupt the crucial scenes! But it doesn't matter. I'll even get upset if my husband tries to change the channel during one of these movies. It's like I'm always in suspense of what's going to happen next (even though I can recite the dialogue word for word). I've watched these movies so many times that even if my husband happens to be channel surfing and I'm in another room and happen to hear in passing just a part of the movie, I will either make him turn it back to that channel or run upstairs and watch it in the other room. Is that weird?

Anyways...back to Pretty in Pink. While I've seen the movie many times, I didn't always pay attention to the details. This time though I noticed things that I hadn't really noticed before. Like how even though Blaine was so rich, he always seemed to be wearing the same thing. Or how many times Andi says "I don't know, y'know?" Or that her mom's picture is hella old. Black and white? How old was her mom anyways? Also, I guess last night's version seemed to be director's cut or something because I don't ever remember swearing and there seemed to be a lot of it last night.


Also I wondered how Ducky (who was so quirkly cool) became nerdy Alan on Two & a Half Men. When this movie first came out and she does the scene where she designs her prom dress and draws it on her big pad of paper I was always like "Wow. She's so cool" and I'd be so jaleux. But now watching it, instead of thinking her prom dress was awesome, I've realized it's actually quite ugly. It has no shape whatsoever and does nothing at all for her figure. It's a weird length and it looks huge! It would have been better if she either just used the dress her dad bought for her or wore Iona's prom dress! Plus her shoes are kind of "matronly". And I also noticed she was wearing pink pantyhose. What?! And she seems to walk sideways when she comes in for prom. Why does she do that?

However, there are the signature lines of this movie that I love, like when she says "What about prom Blaine?! What about prom?" or when Ducky says "Do I offend?!" or "Let's plow." 
 
However, my absolute favorite scene is when she's sitting outside on the steps and he braves coming outside on her "turf" where the weirdos and freaks hang out (though she looks decidely normal compared to them) and he asks her out and she takes her sunglasses off her head and puts them on and places them low on her nose. I thought that was the coolest scene ever and to this day, I channel that look/attitude when I pull my sunglasses off my head and put them on! Totally.
 
And in the end, who doesn't wanna be in love when the guy comes up to you at prom, and says he always believed in you...then mumbles "iloveyou". Aww...