I'm Baaaack ;)

I know it didn't seem like I was on vacation the past couple of weeks with my scheduled posts...but I'm back from my New England States trip with Dale

I have a lot of vacation pictures to share with you, haul posts and some reviews also. 

But I thought I would start off with a post showing you a few outfits I wore during the past two weeks. 

This is what I wore to meet Dale at the Pearson Airport two weeks ago. 

Headband: Elle (I did a review on the headband in this post)

Necklace: Charlotte Russe (one of my favourite necklaces - I love lots of chains, links & rhinestones)

Rings: Forever21 (the one on my middle finger), Betsey Johnson (index finger)

Dress: Forever21

Bag: Michael Kors

High Heels: Guess "Chief" heels

Nails: Broadway Fashion Diva Go Glam nails

Here's a closeup of my nails. I love these! Unfortunately, these are one of the few Broadway branded nails that Dale & I got at Duane Reade in New York City....which we're not able to find elsewhere. 

A mirror finish zebra printed manicure :) What more could a girl want for a manicure?! 

Like all other Broadway branded nails, these are great quality and I highly recommend them. 

Here are a few outfits I wore to the baseball games that Dale took me to at Fenway Park in Boston. 

Headband: Claire's

Shirt: Forever21

Skirt: Garage (it's actually scooters. I love the denim skirts and scooters at Garage)

Handbag: Michael Kors

Heels: Red Patent Peep Toe Slingbacks from Charlotte Russe

Bracelets: leopard print bangles on left arm from Forever21

Watch: Michael Kors

Baseball Cap & Jersey: Boston Red Sox MLB gear

Bracelet: Charlotte Russe

Jeans: Almost Famous

Heels: Red Peep Toe Side Zipper Booties from Charlotte Russe

This was a professional picture taken along Yawkey Way outside of Fenway Park in Boston (it's a proof picture, hence the watermark)

Baseball Cap: Boston Red Sox MLB gear (I'm loving this baseball cap)

Necklace: Arden B (I LOVE this necklace!)

Tank top: Pink for Victoria's Secret (they have a line of MLB baseball gear)

I'll be posting some pictures from my vacation shortly.


Let me know how you've been doing! :)

May Victoria Day Long Weekend

I hope my fellow Canadians enjoyed their Victoria Day Long Weekend :)

My weekend was great! I went clubbing with friends to start it off (see previous post) and the rest of my weekend was well spent with family

Soooo, as requested I have been making efforts to take outfit pictures more often. 

Thank you for all your suggestions on what you'd like to see on my blog - you can let me know anytime. 

This was the outfit I wore on Saturday when I visited my parents and met my older sister Carol's boyfriend for the first time. 

My outfit consisted of this Elle headband

As I had previously mentioned, I'm a bit obsessed with headbands at the moment

Hands down, out of my slowly expanding collection of headbands this Elle headband is the best one so far in terms of quality. It is very comfortable. The black fabric elastic behind the headband stretches to fit and it does not have a metal part which can snag hair among other annoying things - it resembles the Goody Ouchless Gentle Elastics. 

I love how the headband is flexible and not a hard plastic - it makes it more comfortable. One of the lovely Claire's headbands that Dale bought me had snapped after wearing it a few times because it's made of hard (cheap) plastic and it's easy to break believe it or not :(  I would find it hard pressed to snap this Elle flexible headband - so it would be also the ideal type of headband to throw into your luggage or handbag for example. I have to be weary of cheap hard plastic headbands now because of that. 

I wish I could get buy more Elle headbands - but unfortunately they are not easy to come by! Sheesh even ebay doesn't even seem to have any :S Plus I don't think Elle designed much variety at all in this style of headband. I bought this particular headband at a Pharma Plus location. 

These are a few dresses that Dale bought for me at Sirens 

(in my outfit picture I'm wearing the floral print tube dress on the far right)

I love Sirens - sometimes they have really nice stuff and it's affordable too. Sirens should reopen a downtown Toronto store just for me!! (just kidding) They use to have one at Eaton Centre which closed down a long time ago

Dale bought me these Guess Bertina2 High Heel Sandals during our New York City trip ;) 

I really love the natural brown leather and the detailing down the front of the heels. They fit really nicely and go along well with the Michael Kors handbag that I wore (you can see close up pictures of my handbag here) - thank you for everything Dale!

*****

Then on Sunday I spent some time with Mom & Dad - we did some painting

Haha I thought it was so cute that my Mom wore one of my Dad's extra work shirts while painting.

I haven't seen my Mom wear one of my Dad's shirts before so I took a picture! My Mom joked she's gonna kill me for taking her picture LOL Ohhhh if only she knew I'm posting it on blogger :P

I saw my older sister Carol briefly on Sunday and she had bought me something from a Sanrio store 

I think she got it during her recent trip to Vegas? It was very thoughtful of her as she knows I luv Hello Kitty :) Mmmm and I have not tried Cola Flavour gum before - I also haven't had peach flavoured gum in some time. Thanks Carol!

*****

Let me know what's new with you!

Devil's Martini Nightclub

My weekend was off to a great start! 

On Friday I got together with friends and we all went to Devil's Martini Nightclub ;)

 Dress: Sirens

Purse: Coach

High Heels: Charlotte Russe Red Patent Leather Platform Peeptoe Slingbacks

Earrings: an unlisted store in China Town Toronto 

Rings: Forever21

Bracelet: Le Chateau

Watch: Michael Kors

I love this picture. This was all of us :)

Left to Right (front): Val, April, Margarita, Me, Rob & Faye

Left to Right (back): Jeff, Julie, Adam & Olivia

Almost all us girls (Olivia was missing a lot that night!): Myself, Margarita (it's so nice that I met her initially from blogger! You should check out her blog here), Faye, Val & Margarita's cousin April

Awww it's so nice to get together with great friends ;) 

I had a blast and hope to see them all again soon! 

How is your weekend coming along? ;)

Casual Outfit + Sculpture Studio School Show

I met up with Evgueni for the Sculpture Studio School Show on May 5th

I still keep in touch with Evgueni almost everyday and I'm really blessed that we do since he's such a great guy. He's one of the few closest people in my life. I still confide a lot in him.
Thanks for inviting me out Mister ;) Nice to see you after so long.

Here is one of my casual outfits from earlier this month and a few pictures from the show

Headband: Claire's (headbands are my latest obsession!) 

Denim Jacket: Foxy Jeans from Winners (Montreal is lucky to have flagship store locations)

Top: Guess

Handbag: Guess

Jeans: Guess premium power skinny in glamour wash (I LOVE their power skinnies!!) 

Heels: Red patent pumps from Spring Shoes 

Onto the show pictures:

Evgueni, looking great :)

There were many nice art pieces showcased but I only took a few random pictures.
This is a list of the studio members that were showing their work:

The art show is still showcasing until June 1st, so if you're in the area you're welcome to drop in.
The exhibit is open to the public.

Evgueni and I have different taste in art work. Of course, he knows what he's talking about when it comes to sculpture and I don't (Evgueni is a professional sculptor) - but we both love Gloria's works.

Reminds me a bit of music and chemistry class test tubes! Thank goodness Chemistry classes are over and long done with for me!! =)

Evgueni and I like Dean's sense of humour :)

The turn out was great as you can see from the crowds. And do you know who I saw at the show?! Jeanne Beker! Yeah, you know, Jeanne Beker from Fashion Television!!

 I didn't say hi because well, I haven't watched Fashion Television in years and just didn't want to sound stupid not knowing what to say. Evgueni's like, "I think she has a clothing line now" and I'm like, "really? Like high end at Holt's or something" and he's like "yeah I think so" LOL So I felt like since we weren't so knowledgeable about her that I wasn't going to say hi. But next time if I see her there I'll say hi and just keep it simple - let her know I admired her during her Fashion Television show years when I use to watch it :) 

Have you ever ran into someone famous and was too nervous to say hi? Or did you say hi? ;)

Pittsburgh City View, Pittsburgh Incline & Le Mont Restaurant Review

A couple of weeks ago during our Pittsburgh trip, Dale & I were told that Pittsburgh was rated #1 or #2 for the Best City View in North America, and USA Today rated it as one of the top ten views of a cityscape in the world. You can view USA Today's top ten list of  city skylines here.
We were told to go up the incline on the hillside to see the view.

So we took a quick cab ride from the Sheraton Station Square we stayed at over to the Duquesne Incline

Me in front of the incline

That's pretty neat how old this incline is. Since 1877!!
I love getting to know the historical part of a city.

(My zebra french manicure here is from this post) 

This is the inside of the Incline car

Looking up at the tracks

As we're going up you can already see a beautiful view of the city. 

Can you see Heinz Field stadium straight ahead? 

Here's a close up:

Heinz Field stadium is where the famous Pittsburgh Steelers Football team plays 

I would love to experience a football game in that stadium - I heard a lot about Steelers fans ;)

A view of downtown Pittsburgh 

Looking down at the Incline tracks 

At the top of the incline is a nice quaint neighbourhood. 

There are several outlook places to take in the beautiful view....there's also numerous restaurants too. 

Pittsburgh's only 5 star Diamond Award Restaurant, Le Mont Restaurant is located up on the hillside 

*****

Dale took me to Le Mont Restaurant for a nice Easter dinner 

(we extended our vacation, thus missing out on our Easter dinner plans at my parents place)

The ambiance at Le Mont Restaurant is very classy. 

And the view of the city from the restaurant is spectacular. Over the course of dinner we saw the beautiful sunset over Pittsburgh and then the city lights came on. 

Here's a couple of pictures of me in the restaurant

Overall, I would only recommend Le Mont Restaurant if you're looking for a classy place with a nice view of the city. If you're not concerned about a posh environment, then skip this restaurant. 

My complaints about Le Mont Restaurant were the Maitre d' and the food. 

First, the Maitre d' wasn't up on things. Dale asked for a certain bottle of wine and the Maitre d' went to see if it was still in stock since he said it's a popular choice and they might be out of it. That's fine. So the Maitre d' came back to us and said indeed the wine requested was sold out. The Maitre d' went on to suggest an alternative wine which was more than three times the price of the bottle we initially requested. Like WTF?! Why would you suggest a wine that is so much more higher in price? The restaurant has an extensive wine list so couldn't he use a bit more common sense and make a couple of alternatives within the same price range? Sheesh. On top of that, there's a note on the top of their wine list about how they have a top sommelier; well, Dale immediately picked up an error on their wine list  - one of the wines was not placed in its proper category. We mentioned it to the Maitre d' and he couldn't give us an answer nor did he seem to care to do anything about the error. Anyways, so I excused the Maitre d' and told him Dale and I would look over the wine list again. In the meantime I asked if there was herbal tea and the Maitre d's response was, "oh we have selection of Lipton tea bags." Really?!! Lipton tea bags? LOL  Okayyy, you're the only rated Five Star Diamond Restaurant in the city and you don't offer loose leaf tea or at least a better brand of tea?? *shakes head* Even the crappy grocery store near me has a selection of loose leaf teas. I didn't actually say that since that's rude, so I just asked him to bring me some fresh peppermint tea leaves in hot water. 

At that point our main waiter came around to us (yay!) and Dale & I were really pleased with our waiter, Brian. He was super nice and get this: Dale mentioned to him that the wine we initially wanted was out of stock. Brian told us he'd double check and voila, he came out with a bottle of the wine we had initially asked for (the one the Maitre d' said was "out of stock"). 

Towards the end of our meal, we asked our waiter Brian if he would be able to call a taxi for us. If there's one thing I do not like about Pittsburgh it's the severe lack of cabs. Brian said there wouldn't be many cabs running on Easter at that hour so he offered us a lift in his own car down to the other incline. Isn't that so nice of him?! 

As for the food at Le Mont Restaurant, I had ordered the Gulf Shrimp Cocktail and the Veal Piccata.  Dale and I shared the Carrot Cake and Cheesecake deserts. 

Personally I thought the food was mediocre. The traditional shrimp cocktail at Bubba Gumps in New York City was soooo much better than the shrimp cocktail at Le Mont in terms of freshness and hence taste. The Veal Piccata at Le Mont did not impress me at all and I love veal. 

Dale & I agreed the cheesecake was lacking something - and we both love cheesecake. Like, how can you go wrong with cheesecake?! But the carrot cake was great. Dale says the carrot cake at Costco is the best and joked with our waiter Brian that Le Mont should buy some cheesecake from Costco along with the carrot cake they get from there (Le Mont doesn't get their carrot cake from Costco but according to Dale they taste identical)

*****

So our waiter Brian dropped us off at the other incline, the Monongahela Incline (can you pronounce that?!) 

It's such a spectacular view of Pittsburgh city up on the hillside. 

I highly recommend anyone visiting Pittsburgh to go up one or both of the inclines. The daytime view is just as beautiful as the nighttime view. I would suggest maybe heading up the incline late afternoon/early evening to see the view of the city in daylight, go for a walk and have dinner at one of the restaurants up there while the sun sets over dinner. After dinner and perhaps another walk, you can catch a night view of the city before you take the incline back down. 

Dale thinks the only other city that could match Pittsburgh's cityscape view is Seattle, which I would love to visit someday soon. 

Isn't the view of the Pittsburgh city so pretty? 

It's really something to see in real life.

Have you ever been on an Incline before?

What was the last city you had a nice view of?