Food. Beach. Dresses.

The past few weeks have been less than thrilling. Hence the lack of blog posts. Here's what's going on: 

 I'm sure I've mentioned it, but the store I work at moved over two spots. It's a smaller but more manageable store, and allows our merchandise to present itself a little better. I would like to take pictures to show you, but for safety purposes, I probably shouldn't. 

Let me ask you though: What keeps you shopping in retail stores? What draws you in and makes you want to return to that store? We're trying to figure out a way to keep our customers in our store longer. We've noticed that no one is even drawn into the store...not sure why...

Here's what we sell: Beatriz Ball, Waxing Poetic jewelry, Ethyl and Mertyle jewelry, Bellemonde luggage, Tan Towels, Voluspa, Archipelago and Aspen Bay candles, lots of wine accessories and glasses, and more. We a local gift boutique with lots of really great merchandise. We have a beautiful store, but need a few tactics that will help keep customers in our store. Any ideas will help! 

Anyways...

A few weeks ago, I decided to let Fresh Market make our dinner :) We have a Fresh Market down the street from our apartment, so we go there from time to time to get yummy foods. So good. 

So a couple weeks ago, we had a fancy dinner, and here's what Fresh Market provided for us:

An Asian salad made my your's truly: 

Pecan crusted pork chops and twice baked potatoes:

Oreo cupcake for Jamie:

Wet food for Leia:

This stuff looked like stew. Not sure if I'll ever be able to eat stew again:

Fruit tart for me:

Best fruit tart I've ever had in my life:

It was an absolutely delicious dinner, and I will most definitely allow Fresh Market to make our dinner again soon.

On Saturday, we had fun with our usual Syrup Saturday breakfast with our pancake pen that my parents got us.

I tried my best to spell our names...but it's kind of tricky and took me a few letters to get the hang of it.

Jamie's pancakes:

My pancakes:

They were fun and delicious. Duh.

Saturday afternoon, Jamie decided that we needed to do a day trip down to the Gulf. It's a little beach about an hour away from us. Why haven't we done this before? Crazy. Well, we thought it'd be fun to take Leia Lu bear, because she's never seen the ocean. She's never seemed to mind the water, so we thought she'd like it. I brought towels, snacks, my Kindle and a really unhappy puppy!!! Leia whined the whole way there and once we got to the beach, she was a little beach.

The second we got out of the car, Leia went absolutely nutso!!! She practically screamed! Oh she was awful!!! She hated the sand. Hated the ocean. Hated the people. Hated the other dogs there. Hated the heat. She was just hateful!!!!

Actually, I think she was just freaked out. I felt bad for her. She was okay once Jamie and I both got in the water, and we let her swim back and forth to us, but as a whole, she is certainly not a beach puppy.

We stayed out there for approximately 12 minutes. It was that bad. We were those parents. With that kid. Right when we were leaving, Jamie wanted to swim one lap out and right back. Oh Lawd, have mercy!!! Leia made screaming sounds I had never heard from her!!! She totally spazzed! At this point, I was running back to the car. She was out of control. Poor pup.

Here's Jamie, swimming out in the ocean, causing our pup to have a conniption:

Me with the distressed one:

Memorial Day


Yesterday was a FABULOUS day! Probably one of my favorite days since living in Lafayette. The sweet college girls I work with and I decided to do a little day trip to Baton Rouge to go shopping. We've been talking about going for a long time, and finally made it happen. Baton Rouge has really good shopping and we spent most of our time at Perkins Rowe--a great little shopping area with restaurants, fun shopping, and more.

Baton Rouge is about an hour away, so we left around 9:15 and headed that way. Once we got there, we decided that we were all starving, but found it wrong to eat lunch at 10:30. So we all got a yummy Starbucks beverage to hold our tummies for a couple hours, then we went shopping.

Here are my jewels that I found on our shopping spree. This cute cherry dress from Forever 21 or as I like to call it, Forever 25:

 It's a horrible picture, but it's the cutest little dress with cherries on it:

We spent an embarrassing amount of time at Forever 21. It's such a huge store with cute clothes all over the place...but you have to dig. And dig. And dig. To find something that doesn't suit a middle schooler. I like my little dress :)

My other purchase is from Urban Outfitters. A cute strawberry sun dress:

Yet another bad picture, but look how cute it is with the little strawberries:

It was a produce-decorated shopping spree, and I'm thrilled with my cutesy purchases. Tulsa friends and family, I'll be sporting my new dresses in the upcoming week. Just wait and see :)

It was a fabulous day with sweet friends, good food (lunch at La Madeline), good shopping and wonderful conversation. I loved it. 

Okay, this post is long enough. I'll try to be a little more current with my blogging from now on, but no promises. I'll find something to write about that will hopefully keep your interest from time to time :) Love you guys! Hope you've had a great week so far!