2014 Easter Dress

I hope you had a very happy Easter, yesterday! I helped hide the thousand eggs for my community's Easter egg hunt and enjoyed watching all that hard work result in the great enjoyment of all the children. It was a big success and it was finished off with a delicious potluck dinner. It was a beautiful day, which also makes an interesting story. For Thursday, Wednesday, and Friday the weather was overcast and was raining a lot, but on Sunday it was sunny and the sky was completely clear. Coincidence? No way!

On to the fashion part of this post. In the last post I promised pictures of my Easter outfit and I shall now fulfill that promise.

 Here are the list of pieces in this outfit:

1. Dress from Dress Barn — I went shopping at a Tanger Outlet searching for an Easter dress and my mom, (who is really smart), suggested we shop for a dress in the women's section because the biggest difference between junior's dresses and women's dresses is modesty. Women's dresses are significantly more conservative than junior's dresses, which honestly shows the really sad truth about a lot of other teens nowadays. Let me tell you, after looking in a lot of women's stores for clothing I can tell you one thing... "goodbye junior section!" I'm serious, the styles are only really different in the fact that junior's clothing shows more skin. The only down side is that I'm pretty small (only 5'3) and sometimes the stores don't have a size small enough for me, (I know I won't be saying that one day), but it's worth it and I can always take the piece in. Even the my Easter dress is a size too big, but it's not too bad. Highly recommend you trying that, if you already haven't. Thank you so much, mom!



2. Beige Sweater —  Found a dress I love with a good price and length... but with no sleeves, only a thick band. I'm sure that would be modest for some of you, but my family prefers that I have sleeves. That was a bit of a dilemma, but it wasn't as hard at all to find a sweater as I thought. We bought the dress and soon found a 3/4 length sweater that matched at Ann Taylor. However, that wasn't the only item purchased at Ann Taylor, which leads to the next parts of my Easter outfit.

3. & 4. Necklace and Bangle — Checking out the sweater at Ann Taylor, what is right there near the counter? Jewelry 60% off. The two layer, gold chain necklace with little coral beads and the coral bangle really pulled the outfit together and definitely made it pop. Jewelry can do so much for an outfit. The sweater made the dress look more casual, but the jewelry added that little bit that both made the look complete and dressier. There was one more piece that made the outfit dressier as well...

Easter up-do (after an few hour's wear)

5. Nude Pumps— I've already sung the praises of these 3" pumps from Payless before, but I really love these versatile shoes. They seriously go with every dress/skirt! Okay, maybe not everything, but they go with a lot of closet including this Easter dress.

I had my Easter dress and was super excited to wear it Saturday. I just added some borrowed gold loop earrings from mom, some soft makeup, and a sleek, fancy, side up-do (right) and I was ready to attend the beautiful Easter vigil. So that was my Easter outfit and how I made it modest and stylish. I highly recommend shopping at outlets because although they might be "last season" they really are just as trendy and they are always having awesome sales on already lowered prices. We got some real deals for this outfit and although yes, it wasn't cheep, modesty does sometimes come at a price; however, purity is always worth the cost.

~Mariana

Perfectly Pretty Pastels

Wow... does time fly or what? If you said "what," then I envy you. I won't bog you down of the boring details of the past few weeks, but there are two interesting events that happened weekend before last that I'll share after the main event: fashion; topic: trendy spring pastels. 

 In past years pastels never caught my attention, but this year I'm totally opposite. Right now I'm loving the softness of the pastel look. You can wear pastels on pastels or with a bright contrast. Seeing as it's spring they are very fashionable (obviously) and there are two colors I've noticed are really in: mint and pinkish-peach. Those colors look so great together and I am so sad that the peach colored shirt I have has been missing for six months and is still missing. Such sadness and mystery. Maybe I'll find it one day with all the books and other random stuff that I've strangely lost.

 Back to our main topic again, be sure to check back soon to see my Easter dress, how I've made it modest, and accessorized to make it nicer and have more pop. I really love the whole outfit and can't wait to wear it Saturday night for the Easter Vigil.
 

USS Yorktown (battleship)

Laffey (destroyer)

Now to exciting personal events in my life. The weekend before last my family and I went camping in Charleston South Carolina. Why this location?

Submarine

Selfie in the gift shop

Charleston is on the coast where there one can go and tour the U.S.S. Yorktown, a battleship; the Laffey, a destroyer; and a sub, of which I have forgotten the name. There were a good amount of people there, but one could simply roam around for as long as one wants for it's a self-guided tour. Plus, if someone is in the military and wears his/her uniform, then they can get in free, so it was pretty neat seeing soldiers of the different branches here and there. One thing I especially liked was that the battleship's top was covered in military planes, (and those were in addition to the planes within). Overall, it was really cool and a fun learning experience that I enjoyed very much!

I'm on the far left holding the baby

The other notable thing that happened up in South Carolina during our camping trip: I got to see the ocean for the first time in my entire life! Yes, it might sound crazy that this sixteen year old has never been to the ocean before, but it's true. We went there expecting to wade in the shallows and get our ankles wet... well, eight children going to the ocean for the first time... even the low-70's temperature couldn't stop us from slowly, but surely getting more and more wet until we were soaked. The sandy-freezing-half-hour-long car ride back to the camp site was not the most pleasurable part of the trip, but the fun we had in the waves were worth it, (or at least it was for me).

~Mariana