Winter Markets and White Dresses (by the Shore)

Seeing that Ironman Florida was two weeks ago, I finally ended my two weeks of no training (and got to try on wedding dresses too!). 

The day began with a power yoga class.  I dragged both Emily and Shaun along for the fun, I'm not sure either one is going to be too happy with me tomorrow morning, but it felt good to actually move around.  After the yoga class Emily and I headed to the Knox Park Winter Farmers Market in Hartford.  The market took place inside the Knox Park Greenhouses.  While there aren't that many fresh fruits and veggies left in Connecticut (it is November) there were some great vendors.

Cato Corner Farm Cato Corner from Colchester, Connecticut has some of the best cheese around.  I picked up a half pound of Dairyere, a lovely Gruyere style cheese, and a half pound of Hooligan, a "stinky" cheese with a creamy interior. 

Boxed Goods Boxed Goods (from Litchfield) has fantastic dry goods including beans, grains, rices and spice blends.  I've been on a serious salt kick lately so I picked up a "Pure Pink" salt grinder, a Daily Grind spice mix and a Kickin' Comfort Spice Mix (this one contains cinnamon, clove, ginger, anise and orange peel and goes really well with coffee). 

Sweet Pea Cheese  From North Granby.  This farm sells all things GOAT (except goat eggs).  I picked up some Greek style goat milk yogurt and Emily bought some goat cheese. 

We got lunch at the farmers market from the Lucky Taco truck (I feel like I need a Lucky Taco t-shirt).  Emily and I were both pains and ordered off menu.  I got a fantastic bowl of black beans with chicken, tomatoes, lettuce and guacamole.  Emily got the same except swapped chicken for portabello mushrooms.  The chicken I had was ridiculously good.  It was slow cooked, super tender and had the taste and consistency of pulled pork.  It really rare to get melt in your mouth chicken, but Lucky Taco managed to pull it off.

After lunch, we headed down to Clinton to go wedding dress shopping at White Dress by the Shore.  I bought my wedding dress at White Dress and it was by far the best dress shop I visited.  Emily is still in the "trying to figure out what she likes" stage of dress shopping so we pulled a bunch of dresses to see what works.

While Emily tried on some of the dresses (this is her in Ebony by Modern Trousseau), I am lucky enough to easily fit into the designers' sample sizes, usually an 8 or a 10, so I got to play the role of "Sample Size Barbie" for the afternoon.

Here I am in Jenny Yoo's Charlize.  This is my favorite for Emily.  Its silk organza with a strapless, criss cross sweet heart neck line.  Very pretty and would look good on Emily as well. 

Finally, my personal favorite.  Emily wanted me to try this one on just for fun.  The dress' name is Sass and its from Ivey & Aster.  I completely fell in love with the dress and think that I'm going to get it in black to wear as my bridesmaid dress for Emily's wedding.  I know it a lot of dress (and the plunge in the back is even deeper than the plunge in the front) but its just so cute.