Pretty Spring/Summer Dresses!

If you read my last post (on graduation dresses) you'll know what my dresses look like, (tell me which one you like best!) I personally love summer dresses, I've especially noticed how many cute dresses Hollister has lately, as well as Abercrombie. Not only am I shopping for graduation dresses recently, but also dresses for the grad dance, this formal dance thing at the end of the year. I did buy my dress, but cannot find it on the website so I'll have to take a picture later and put it up in another post, but I got it at Macy's on sale for $63 and it's pink with flowers, and it's a really pretty, strapless minidress. Anyway, I wanted to talk about some of the cutest dresses and share my thoughts, plus share with you what will probably end up being my graduation outfit!

Personally, I love the Hollister dresses, as I already mentioned many times. I love the casual summery look of them, plus they are strapless (personally my favorite) and are not too revealng. They come in a ton of cute prints and patterns, too, and are relatively affordable at $60 or less, and will probably be on sale soon as well. They are really comfortable soft dresses and definitely very pretty. I like this lime green one:

Personally, with dresses I like to keep my shoes pretty casual unless it's some formal event in which I feel like wearing heels (will do another post on that later) so I like flip flops...that are a little bit nicer than just your average flip flops. I picked out these leather ones from Hollister, and they match the dress perfectly! They are currently $34.50 which might seem a bit expensive for flip flops but they are totally worth it.

For jewelry, I plan to keep that simple as well, just my fake diamond studs, and Tiffany bracelet, maybe a cocktail ring from Forever 21, but nothing too special!

Tell me what you think of this look in the comments below!

Graduation Dresses!

So graduation is coming up (for me anyway when I graduate middle school in June:) which means its time to start shopping for dresses, especially this past week, which for me was April vacation. I picked two dresses, both from Hollister, I think the price was $59.90 for both? I'm pretty sure that's what it was. Both are really pretty and I can't decide what one I want to wear!



or...



---so, what one do you like better?

Playing Oboe/Competition/Band

Yesterday I had a band competition (won silver:) so I thought I would blog about my experience playing oboe, (I love it,) and being part of a concert band, what competition is like, etc.

I'm in my last year of middle school, there are three grades in my middle school, no not telling what grade I'm in...just 'cause haha...but anyway, around December of this year I decided I wanted to join band, so I talked to my band director and he said that, they had just had the winter cncert, would just be starting on new songs, it would be a good time to join, especially because I want to be part of band in high school, and it would be beneficial to have a little prior experience. So, after much thought, I was between clarinet, and oboe. I listened to several videos of each on YouTube and finally realized oboe is the instrument I love, I've loved it since I first heard one in third grade. It took a few tries to rent the oboe, as there were a few payment issues, but eventually it was worked out and I first started on oboe in the middle of January. I love it. Oboe is something I can look forward t, I actually considered joning when I first started middle school, but for some stupid reason waited til now. It's so fun to know how to ply an instrument! The only downside is, the reeds. I use Jones Medium Oboe Reeds, they are what work best for me. As you may know, oboe reeds are expnsive, a good reed costs about $15 at least. And you go through them pretty quickly, they're very easy top break. I'm currently on my sixth reed since January, and yeah, I have a friend who plays clarinet who uses an average of twelve per month, but then again, you can get a box of twelve good clarinet reeds for about $10. If you're willing to spend the money, oboe is an amazing instrument to learn how to play. Also, it is one of the hardest. You need a good embouchure and when you first start need to be willing to work hard at it and practice often. Again, all worth it!

So, yesterday was competition, my band got a silver medal. It was fun, we were one of the first groups to perform, meaning after we performed, we basically had the whole day until awards to do whatever we wanted - talking, eating, just hanging out, whatever, so it was really fun:) The stage was pretty amazing and I loved playing, although my reed was brand new, and I probably should've broken it in a little bit first hahaha. Other than that everything went smoothly, and at the clinic afterward, turns out the only thing keeping us from gold was pretty much just being perfectly in tune. We were actually just one point away from gold which is really annoying, but whatever, we still did good and my band director seemed pretty happy with it:)