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You do not want to miss this giveaway! It involves a $100 giftcard to a great department store. It may or may not be to Nordstrom. Visit here to find out...

designer apparel

Have y'all ever heard of Designer Apparel? I sure wish I would have know about it when I was searching for my Mom's Mother of the Bride dress. We had the hardest time finding something that looked like my mom, fit and was in our budget. This site would have made all the searching easier.

The site is set up really well and lets you search by price, store, and different sales. I love sites that give me several categories to choose from. Designer Apparel has brought together some great stores all in one place: Neiman Marcus, Shopbop, Bloomingdales, Bluefly, Zappos, Net-A-Porter, and Nordstrom. They also have tools like price comparison, sale notification, and free shipping notice! I am all about online stores with free shipping codes. :)

One of the problems with finding my Mom's dress was she is petite, so sizing was difficult. I found several petite options on Designer Apparel.

{Adrianna Papell}

They also have plus sizes.

{Adrianna Papell}

Another problem we had was everything looked too old for my mom. We didn't want her to look frumpy and it seemed that most Mother of the Bride dresses we found just weren't her style. I was expecting to see a lot of frumpy dresses when I searched through this site. It was not the case. They do have the more traditional dress, but several that would have been great options for my mom. And the more I think about it Ty's mom as well. I know she struggled with finding a dress that fit her style when she was searching for a dress for her youngest daughter's wedding.

{Donna Ricco}

Something to note is when you click on a thumbnail image of a dress, the site takes you directly to the retailer. Designer Apparel isn't a middle man. They also offer links to help you search for kids clothes, handbags and maternity--just to name a few.

Road Trip--East Coast Edition

Ty is applying to several residency programs on the East coast, so we wanted to get out of the city and drive around a little. Our destination was not a residency location, but we did get to stop by a town with a residency program on the way.

We walked to the rental car location at 6:45 a.m.

We got in our tiny rental car and drove an hour to...

Ocean City, New Jersey

We originally wanted to go to Atlantic City, but the reviews I had read online were not that great. Ocean City received great reviews and I'm so happy that is where we ended up. Ocean City boasts a 2.5 mile boardwalk. Beach, state fair type food, ferris wheel, bicycles--I was sold!

The first thing we did was rent bikes at Ove's.
I am in love with this bike and would love for Santa to bring me one just like it!

I wonder if I could get Nuts to ride in the basket. Wouldn't that be adorable?!

We were walking along the beach around 8:30. I love early mornings at the ocean.

Did I mention how much I loved this bike??

Mid-morning snack: fresh squeezed lemonade and a pretzel.
My mouth is watering just thinking about that pretzel.

I was SO excited to ride the ferris wheel, but it turns out the thing doesn't open until 1 pm. We had to be back on the road to the airport at that time. Bummer!

We rode our bikes several times up and down the boardwalk, browsed shops, ate food and enjoyed each other's company. My biggest regret is not being extremely hungry. There were so many things I would have liked to eaten. I guess I will just have to wait for the fair to come to town to get my fill of funnel cakes and all things fried.

Ocean City and Atlantic City aren't very far apart, so on our way back to Philadelphia we stopped by. I'm so glad we spent the majority of our time in OCNJ. Atlantic City was too commercialized for my taste.

We spent a little bit of time in a casino.

Yummy mini corn dogs.

If we ever live in the PA or NJ area, we will definitely be spending a weekend in Ocean City.
I'm so happy we made a mini vacation out of Ty's test. He is extremely busy this fall and I barely see him. It was nice to spend quality time together and explore new places.