Road trip

Now that our therapy-inducing Christmas "vacation" has ever-so-slightly faded from my memory (okay, not really) it's time for our summer torturefest vacation.  This time instead of spending 30 hours on a plane with a toddler, we've decided to spend them in the car and throw the dog into the mix to add to the fun and because his breath will surely keep us from passing out behind the wheel.  Of course I haven't packed a thing and this is where taking the car is sort of a bad thing because it will make me think I can bring everything we might possibly "need" and the hubs will pack/re-pack the car 10 times while yelling that it's my fault if we're so weighted down we get 5 miles to the gallon and go broke before we even make it to Alabama.

Our first stop is North Carolina, for a week with the in-laws.  I was hoping this would mean some relaxing pool time as well as a little shopping at Nordstrom Rack but those hopes were dashed 2 days ago when my mother-in-law emailed me the first part of our agenda for the week.  I should have seen this coming because she has a history of surprising us with bizarre events when we visit.  Surprise being the key word here.  Several years ago she told us we were going out to brunch as a family, only for a realtor to show up who then took the hubs and I on a house-hunting expedition in Durham in case, you know, we might ever want to move there permanently down the road.  That same trip a random guy showed up at the house one day and my mother-in-law acted like an old friend of hers had just dropped by for a chat.  He turned out to be a career counselor who she had arranged to come over and counsel me on my lack-luster career and how it would surely flourish if we were to, say, move to North Carolina.  Hmm, do we see a pattern here?  Needless to say I'm already nervous about the "picnic" she's arranged 2 days after we get there.  Perhaps it will be a pre-school recruiter who will sell us on the fabulous-ness of the North Carolina school system.  I think I'll volunteer to bring the wine and chug a bottle behind a tree before that little shindig gets into full swing.

Anyway, this trip includes my brother's wedding which I mentioned a few months back when I couldn't figure out what to wear.  I didn't have any great epiphanies (or win the lottery)  in the meantime but did settle on this Marc by Marc Jacobs dress that miraculously went on sale and I was able to have altered for EIGHT DOLLARS (um, awesome):

And that peplum waist detail actually helps hide the mummy tummy - score.  I paired the dress with these shoes (thanks to Vickie's stylish input of course :)





I'm also wearing this Anthro dress to the rehearsal dinner, which I scored on eBay after some serious stalking:

Audrey is wearing a Janie & Jack dress and hairbow with some white Target dress shoes:

After the wedding we head up to Delaware for some *hopefully* relaxing beach time with my parents.  This will be at the expense of my mom spoiling Audrey rotten, leading to 2 weeks of tantrum-throwing when we get home and Audrey realizes that she isn't, in fact, THE BOSS and yes, time out does exist again.  But we've been down this road before.     

So, if you happen to be driving east over the next two weeks and hear some commotion coming from an SUV in the lane next to you, don't judge.  Just roll down the window and throw me a few of those mini liquor bottles, will ya?