{men in black}

The last couple of days I have been in Minnesota for a hearing aid convention/conference and my fellow audiology classmates (who I’ve recently found out read my blog, here’s a shout out to you, hehe!) will appreciate the sentiment of the title of my blog! Haha! Thankfully, it looks like I haven’t been scarred for life due to the men in black!

On Thursday morning, my classmates Katie and Bria, and myself started our journey to Minnesota. Katie was awesome enough to drive and Bria and I did our best at being co-pilots. We only took one ‘detour’ and that was my fault, but we didn’t have to turn around, nor did we end up really going out of our way. We all joked that we needed to see some more tractors so the detour was much needed, haha! The plan was to do some shopping at Ikea before checking into the hotel. I had never been to Ikea before and was excited.

About an hour outside of our destination Katie had the bright idea of going wedding dress shopping. We didn’t know if it would be possible because normally you need an appointment to go try on wedding dresses, but we were hopeful. I looked up bridal salons near our final destination and found one with a name that sounded promising. It didn’t have any reviews, but it was called Bridal Accent Couture and anything with the name Couture (spelling?!) has to have good dresses, right?! I had only tried on dresses at one other place and none of those were promising and the same had happened with Katie. We called them up and they were able to fit us both in! We joked that Bria was engaged too so she could try on dresses, but when we got there she didn’t feel comfortable trying them on so she just gave her excellent opinion to Katie and myself.

We definitely lucked out and the place had some awesome dresses (and many that were WAY out of my budget). Katie and I got right into it trying on different dresses. We have totally different tastes in mind and we both had some great dresses to try on… and… we both think we found our wedding dresses. Well, Katie is pretty certain and she definitely had that ‘look’ on her face when she came out in the dress. Her wedding dress budget is definitely higher than what I would like to spend on my dress and so she was totally okay with the price of the dress she had decided upon. ‘My’ dress wasn’t super expensive, but I’ve always been pretty budget conscious and don’t know if I could spend that much on a dress I’ll only be wearing once. My cousin told me that when I found my dress I would just know. Because this was the first place that I have visited that actually had dresses that I liked I’m hesitant to say yes that I found my dress. I can tell you that with the dress on and looking in the mirror and I was already at my wedding. I was envisioning walking down the isle to Jay and the party afterwards. It just worked!

Below are some pictures of the dress that I liked the most. Because I haven’t fully ‘committed’ to the dress, I don’t mind posting pictures of it for others to see. If and when I find the dress and it happens to be this one, no one will remember by the time the wedding rolls around anyways. The dress comes with a removable wrap. I tried it on without the wrap and if I were to get the dress, I would probably only wear the wrap for a few pictures. It is an A-line style dress; however, the consultant at the bridal salon said that it could be tailored in a little tighter on me so it wasn’t so ‘fluffy’ and the way she contoured it to my body was awesome! (I’d had pictures of me in the dress, but I left my camera in the car because I didn’t know if they would allow that as some places don’t.) What really made the dress me was the belt that she added to it which you can see in one of the pictures below too. It totally fit the feel I am going for for the wedding. Overall, I’ve found out that I am not a frilly super big fluffy wedding dress person who doesn’t want a huge long train or a lot of poof.

Only time will tell if this is the dress for me, right?! It definitely was a lot of fun though!

After some wedding dress ‘shopping’ we finished making our way to the hotel and relaxed for a little while before heading out for supper and the welcome reception for the convention we would be at for the next two days. I have to say, I was excited about the hotel stay because it looks pretty nice on the website and even in person. The rooms; however, left much to be desired. First off, Bria found a pair of underwear and socks in one of the drawers in her room. Ick! That earned her and her roommate some free coffee and access to the top floor of the hotel for a night. Secondly, there was no fan in the bathroom, they charged you for internet access and bottles of water in the room, there was no refrigerator and crap for TV channels, and the deadbolt lock on our room broke! The beds were comfy though and had nice comforters on them though, so that kind of made up for it. We got free water for our broken lock and they offered to switch us to a different room, but the other lock on our door worked and we didn’t really care. It was mediocre for a Marriott. The pool and hot tub were nice though… couldn’t complain about those.

The welcome reception/supper was good. We were definitely never hungry! Thursday night was our introduction to the men (and women) in black suits. Because there was maybe 50 students that were invited there was definitely a lot more one on one interactions with the people from the hearing aid manufacturer and at times (okay, more than just at times) it was uncomfortable and exhausting trying to keep up a façade of happiness when all we wanted to do as students was not talk hearing aids. Some of the people sort of held that air of superiority and it was annoying.

Friday and Saturday were both full days of classes and more men in suits. There were a few hands on labs and I have to say that that was the highlight of both days. I loved getting hands on experience with new things. Overall, I have to say that it was definitely an eye opening experience. Best part by far was ‘bonding’ with my classmates. We don’t get to see the Madison students in person very often and so it was nice to be able to spend some time with them outside of class and to be able to catch up. The same goes for my fellow on campus classmates. We see each other less and less each semester because of our schedules so getting to catch up with them was fun as well. I don’t know how much they all enjoyed it, we I had a good time venting about different things with them and hearing how their lives are going.

Katie, Bria, and I didn’t attend either social event on Friday or Saturday night. The group went bowling on Friday night and we went out to eat at Olive Garden and then spent an hour walking around Ikea. I didn’t realize that Ikea was so close to the Mall of America and would have liked to go there, but I know that we will be visiting in the summer so it didn’t bother me too much. Saturday after we got back to the hotel to change for the social event, we packed up and left to come home. Each of us had had enough of it and wanted to go see our significant others and sleep in our own beds. Little did I know that Jay had decided to go ‘home’ and I was headed back to an empty house. I was bummed a bit at first, but was okay because I got home and went to bed pretty quickly. (It was a LONG drive back!)

I have to say that the GPS on my phone didn’t let us down and Katie handled driving in the bigger cities AWESOMELY! I could never have done that, especially on the way home because my GPS led us through downtown Minneapolis and it got a little more crazy than I would have liked. Okay, a lot more crazy! I don’t do driving in big cities AT ALL! But we made it home just fine! Kudos to Katie!

I was definitely exhausted because I went to bed around 11pm and didn’t get up until 10am! Today has definitely been a lazy day for me, especially since my boys aren’t home yet. I got up and moved from my bed to the couch where I watched (don’t judge) Justin Beiber Never Say Never on Netflix. I have to say it was pretty good. I don’t really like or dislike Justin. I don’t really listen to music as country is my genre. I do have to say that around Christmas time I was listening to a song on the radio and thought the girl who was singing it sounded good and then found out it was Justin Beiber, haha! It was funny! Anyways, I enjoyed watching the movie and it made him seem so much more real and down to earth. And, I had to watch it while Jay wasn’t home because I knew he would give me a hard time! He probably still will! It was noon before I showered and got ‘dressed’ in sweats and a sweatshirt sans makeup and doing my hair. It is definitely a stay at home day!

While I was gone, my portfolio type photo book came in the mail. I have to say, I am SO in LOVE with how it turned out. I put a few pictures from each photo session in the last year in it that I really liked. When I ordered it I was worried that it would be too small, but I didn’t want to pay an arm and a leg for it either. I ordered it from Blurb.com because I LOVED how my last photo book from them turned out and this one didn’t let me down either. The size is perfect for what I wanted it for and it just turned out amazing! If you are looking for a very nice photo book at reasonable prices, check out Blurb.com (btw, I am in no way being compensated for my review of them, they don’t even know I exist), you will NOT be disappointed. My 7x7 book with 40 back to back pages (80 pages with pictures on) only cost $40 (sans shipping because I found a coupon code that made that free). Maybe I will post some pictures of it at a later date.

Okay, my boys are home, time to go!

CIAO! LOVE ME!