A fashion and lifestyle blog for young professional women

Curacao 2016 - Vacation Recap

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Romper c/o

I was SO happy to be posing with giant letters spelling my name haha! My Curacao trip with my mom was a really great trip, and I figured today I would share some of my favorite photos from the trip with you!


Below is my version of a 'photo recap'. I hope you like it! I will be back on Monday with an outfit post AND a blog announcement! If you want to find out in advance what this announcement is, be sure to follow me on twitter and facebook and I will try to announce earlier on there!

One of the greatest things about Curacao was the gorgeous scenery - the beach views were breathtaking (obviously) but I was also so in love with the bold colored buildings. Everything was so bright and happy!

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lilly-pulitzer-dress Similar Dress (1), (2) // Sunglasses

As a law nerd, whenever I travel I always try to find the local courthouse and/or prosecutor's office. This gorgeous building is home to the Curacaoan Public Prosecution service. COOL.

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Romper c/o

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My mom & I snorkeled a lot. This pic is at my favorite of all the beaches we went to - Playa Lagun.

The crazy cool bridge separating Punda & Otrabanda - the two main parts of downtown. The bridge is on pontoons and swings side to side to let boats through! 
 My favourite restaurant we went to - De Gouverneur. Such a beautiful atmosphere!


My other favorite meal of the trip was in the old marketplace. You sit in cafeteria style seating and they make you whatever they feel like. My mom and I had the amazing meal pictured here, which included African stewed cucumber, papaya & plantains. 

tropical-vacation-beautifulI really liked the work of the local artist Nena Sanchez. Her murals were everywhere!
Nena Sanchez is most famous for her Chi chi dolls which are unique to CuraƧao and a celebrated part of the culture. This massive Chi Chi sculpture was on display and I instantly fell in love with it.

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My mom and I drank a lot of pina coladas & strawberry daquris during the trip! 

Overall, as you can probably tell, my trip to Curacao was great - and I would highly recommend it!

 
Linking up with: casual friday // fab favorites // friday favorites // fabulous friday // flashback fashion fridays // that friday bloghop // weekend bloghop // 

Tropical Vacation - Fashion Sneak Peek

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Guess what!? Tomorrow I am off to the tropical island of Curacao for a week's vacation! I am SO excited. I started packing on boxing day haha! (..seriously though...)

Today I wanted to show you some of the items I'll be taking with me (and why I think they're important to pack for a tropical vacation!)

Also, I am excited to announce that while I am away I will be having three fantastic guest bloggers posting here on LLB! They are 3 of my personal favorite fashion bloggers so I cannot wait for them to post. I wanted to make sure you, my lovely readers, weren't left without content! Be sure to come back on Monday and see who the first one is - you are going to love her. Also, follow along on instagramtwitter to get photos & updates from my trip


Packing for a Tropical Vacation 

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M
y starting point when packing tropical is always my swimsuits! I figure I'm going to spend more time in them than any actual items of clothing so I might as well spend the most time picking my favorites (and picking coverups, accessories, etc. to coordinate with my swimwear!)

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Similar Dresses- (1), (2), (3)

I always pack one casual summery dress for a tropical vacation. Something light and breathable that can be worn for a day of sightseeing

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 Sports Bra // Similar Workout Shorts- (1), (2)

I indulge and laze around most of the time while on vacation, but I do like to have at least one workout outfit on me. You likely won't find me in a gym while vacationing, but I like to be able to a run on the beach or even some yoga/abs by the pool in the mornings. A simple workout outfit is therefore a must! 

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Similar Tops- (1), (2), (3) // Similar Shorts- (1), (2)
Similar Looking Romper that I LOVE

I like to have one casual outfit consisting of comfortable shorts and a top. This is perfect/necessary for a day of exploring. 

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In addition to my one casual dress, I always pack one slightly fancier dress for dinners, evenings on the beach, grabbing a late night drink, etc. You may remember me showcasing this dreshere- it was definitely one of my favorite outfits from last summer, and I am still so in love with the fit and pattern. This was my first Lilly dress and I can't get over the amazing fit/quality

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Last but not least I pack some jewelry. I go pretty easy on the jewelry when I travel- especially when travelling somewhere tropical where I know I will be in an out of a chlorinated pool, salt water, and be covered in sunscreen. ... Not exactly a fun environment for your jewelry! That being said, I pack 3-5 items that I think are pretty durable. The monogram necklace is perfect because it's acrylic!

Have a fantastic week everyone! I know my guest posters will take awesome care of you while I am away and I will see you back here in a week and a half!

Linking up with: that friday blog hop // fab favorites // fabulous friday // flashback fashion friday // casual friday // friday favorites // friday finds // favorite fashion friday 

High Five for Friday #5

Happy Friday! This week I am doing another High Five for Friday recap of 5 great things from my week. Here goes:
1) Rooftop Dinner
Last Sunday night my friend Natalia & I spent some time relaxing at the beach (always a win in my books). Then went and got Thai take out for dinner. Natalia's building has a rooftop with some of the most ridiculously gorgeous views of the Ocean so we took our thai food and ate dinner on the roof in the sunshine. It was so much fun and the perfect relaxing way to start off another week!


2) Mail Day!
I am like a kid at Christmas when things I have ordered online finally arrive. This week I got a target shipment and I am in love with everything I got!

3) World's Shortest trip to the U.S.A.

On Tuesday I went to Point Roberts, Washington for the first time. I recently got a mailbox there (something apparently so many Canadians living closer to the border do; who knew!?) and so I went to pick up the above mentioned target order. I was in the U.S. for all of 30 minutes but I had SO MUCH FUN. I am so weird but I just could not get over the fact that within 50 minutes of leaving my apartment I was in a different country!! I actually had so much fun driving over the border, and Point Roberts is actually a cute little town! I drove around the ocean front for a while before heading back across the border and snapped a couple pretty pics.

 
 Sunglasses. Similar: here
 



4) Dance Rehearsals I have a big dance show tonight (ahh!) and so this week has been filled with dance rehearsals. I think I have danced for a minimum hour and half every day this week.

5) Family Time

My mom arrived from Toronto last night and is staying for a week to help me get all moved in to my new place. I am so excited to have her here (she has a great eye for decorating and I could really use her help!) plus I am excited to just spend some time walking along the sea wall and catching up.

Ps. since my mom arrived last night I don't have any pics to represent this "great moment from my week" so here is a pic of my mom from a blog post I did on her here)
 

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Vegas - Do's and Dont's

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I can't believe it has already been a month since my girls trip to Vegas!! It was the best trip of my life so far - even better than The Yacht Week last summer which was pretty darn amazing. With this trip it just seemed that at every turn Vegas managed to out-Vegas itself - everything was bigger, louder & crazier than I could have imagined. For today's post I thought I'd give you a mini recap of my trip (according to my iPhone).

We arrived in Vegas Friday evening and went straight to check in to our hotel. We stayed at the Monte Carlo, which was perfect. We wanted to be right on the strip - and near all the hotels we wanted to go to (since literally going to a club in the hotel right next door can be a 20 min walk since the hotels are so massive!). Monte Carlo is a bit older (so fit within our price range!) but still had the central location.


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** I couldn't resist snapping a pic of our "shoe collection". The 4 of us girls went CARRY ON on this trip and still managed to produce this many shoes. We are basically packing ninjas**


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**Outside our hotel**


As soon as we checked in we got our butts to OMNIA night club at Caesars Palace. OMNIA was a really interesting club. We got taken straight to one of the booths on the top level and spent the night partying there. The actual club is on multi-levels with this big moving chandelier type thing in the middle. Armin Van Buuren was playing the night we went and he was great!

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** OMNIA night club** 

Now, the best part of Vegas, in my opinion, are the day parties. Don't get me wrong, the nightclubs are amazing, but I have been to many cities around the world with great nightclubs. What made Vegas unique was the day parties. On Saturday we went to Wet Republic at the MGM Grand. After what was a giant unorganized mess of a "line" trying to get in, the actual pool party was really great. We spent some time in a booth by the main pool, and then the rest of the day in cabana a bit higher up, which was away from the DJ but had it's own mini-pool! Basically a hot tub, but filled with cold water. This cabana set up was probably my favourite of all them. Calvin Harris was the DJ and he was really great.
 
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**Outfits: my swimsuit: here, similar body chains: here, here and here **

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Saturday night we saw the Cirque du Soleil show "Zumanity". ... Funny story, we actually slept through the 7pm show that we had tickets for (... a little too much fun at Wet Republic I guess!) and woke up in a panic at 8pm. Luckily, we went to the box office and they were SO kind and just gave us tickets to the 10pm show instead. The show was really interesting and had some incredible acrobats. I highly recommend it!

After Cirque we went to Hakkasan night club (back at the MGM Grand). This was actually my least favourite night club - it felt very cramped - basically like every night club here in North America. However, Tiesto was DJ'ing and he was absolutely amazing!! Definitely my favourite DJ set from the trip!

Sunday, we went to Encore Beach Club. Again, I absolutely loved the day pool party scene; far more "me" than the club scene I guess. David Guetta DJ'd and he was pretty good. I really liked this club since we spent a lot of time bouncing around between different cabanas.

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 ** Encore Beach Club**
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 ** Outfit: Swimsuit, very similar: here, Statement necklace, similar: here and here, Sunglasses, similar: here. On Lauren: Swimsuit, similar: here, Sunglasses, here **

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review-of-different-vegas-pool-parties-day-clubSunday night we went to XS - which has a "Sunday night swim" so the club is set up outside around the pool. It was awesome to be night clubbing but in the fresh, cool air!! Zed, who I had never heard of before, was the DJ. He was a bit too electronic / techno-y for my taste, but it was still fun. The Sunday Night swim at XS was definitely my favourite part of the Vegas trip and I definitely recommend going to this if you are there on a Sunday!


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** XS Sunday Night Swim**

Monday, our last day, we just explored the strip! Checked out as many hotel lobbies as we could and even did a bit of gambling! I only play Roulette, but I had SO much fun doing that. I am not much of a gambler as I was only willing to part with $5 for gambling purposes, LOL, but I turned that $5 into $27 so I was deliriously happy!

Overall, the trip was unreal. I laughed more than I ever thought possible, drank a ton, danced even more. 



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Some random thoughts & tips if you are heading to Vegas:

1) DON'T bother buying/bringing sunscreen - the pool party clubs have sunscreen in all the cabanas.. and if you/your friends aren't placed in a cabana, I am also told that you can just go to the lost and found and they will give you a lost sunscreen.

2) DO bring your most glam outfits. It is absolutely normal to wear heels and a statement necklace with your bikini while at the pool parties.

3) DON'T plan on more than one club per night. It is just not do-able given how far away the clubs are from each other

4) DO hashtag "vegas" or "lasvegasclub" or other similar things on a social media post when you arrive. Recruiters for the clubs search these and will leave info on different clubs (and how to get on their guest list) on the photo. This is great if you are a Vegas first-timer and don't know any of the recruiters. Trust me, you need a recruiter to get you in the clubs, otherwise you are looking at lineups an hour or longer!

5) DON'T miss out on the pool parties! I swear they are better than the nightclubs!

6) DO take a day to walk the strip going in to a bunch of the hotels lobbies/casinos just to check them out. They truly are stunning. My "must sees" are: Caesar's Palace, the Venetian, Paris, Aria, & Cosmopolitan. 


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© LegalLee Blonde

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