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London and Long Tall Sally

We made you wait long enough for the final day in London! I keep laughing every time someone thinks we’re still in London. We never post our pictures as we’re traveling, it will always be on a delay. But we do appreciate the well wishes, the trip was incredible! If you haven’t caught the first three days; here is day one, here is day two, and here is day three.

For our final day, we awoke ready to make the most of it. The plan was to walk over to an area that had a boutique our Aunt Susan wanted to shop. So we headed that way, with the intent to find a place for breakfast en route. Well turns out, a lot of stuff closes down for their bank holiday, aka our Memorial Day. We ended up trying to find somewhere that was open, and that we could sit inside. That turned out to be a taller order than expected. So then we stopped into another Paul’s and were able to sustain ourselves on more croissants while we searched.

There ended up being a restaurant a block or two off the main street, and once inside we realized it was a hotel. They had enough to satisfy everyone, so we sat and warmed up. The weather had taken a turn back to typical London. It was slightly overcast, and windy. Once warmed with breakfast and coffee, we headed towards the boutique. Or so we thought, dun dun dun. Plot twist, we had walked past Long Tall Sally’s flagship store “on our way” to this other boutique. Since we were in the area, we might as well stop in.

Turns out, the only reason we were in the area was to visit Long Tall Sally. As we were perusing the racks (which was freaking incredible) our Aunt Susan disappeared and reappeared with envelopes that contained gift cards from Long Tall Sally. Once again we were blown away. First Asos, and now Long Tall Sally?! We couldn’t even believe it. It was the BEST to be able to sit downstairs and try on shoe after shoe after shoe. Cinderella, we get you! When the shoe fits, it’s magical.

Once we finished with the shoes, we got to come back upstairs and try on all of the other sections. I had been obsessing over the rainbow striped dress ever since it dropped, so that was top of the list. They have the nicest women working at their store. It just felt like a wonderful sisterhood of tall women. They were ready to grab different sizes at any moment for us and gave feedback on the fit of items. I ended up taking home this rainbow dress, this denim dress, and these sneakers. The fit of the denim dress is a bit looser than normal, so where I normally wear a 10/12US, I got it in an 8US.

Caitlin tried on several pairs of shoes and ended up grabbing the same Mary Jane flats that are so perfect and versatile that I own. She also has been impatiently waiting to grab this perfect printed wrap dress. It fits her like a dream and the print is basically seasonless. She’s been loving loafers lately and couldn’t leave this classic black pair behind. Luckily for us, they had a sale running in-store to buy 2 items get 1 free. We could have spent so much more money and we know they definitely will be taking more of our money soon. I had such a hard time leaving this blue wrap maxi dress behind. The fit was incredible.

After our incredible experience at Long Tall Sally, we took our first and only cab ride back to the Airbnb to drop off our goodies. We had been talking about the cabs the whole time, and it was fun to squeeze the four of us in, with Caitlin and I sitting in the pull-down seats facing the back. From there, we headed out again to find some tourist attractions. We took the tube to Westminster Abbey and wove our way through the throngs of other tourists. The tour buses had been passing relentlessly and we thought it might be nice to get off our feet and listen to some history and see more than we could walking. Unfortunately, we didn’t quite find the right area to be picked up at the bus stop. Instead, we moved on to find Buckingham Palace!

It’s a very impressive structure, but when no one is outside there really isn’t much to see! None of us could imagine living in there full time and having millions of people stalking about the gates hoping to catch a glimpse of you. Not an ideal scenario by me! Quickly we decided to hit up some shopping and ended up at Oxford Street. WOW, there were tons of people there! We basically ran through a couple of stores because no one was in the mood to fight the crowds. With our energy flagging, tea was in order.

We luckily found a charming tea spot called the Tea Terrace. It’s the top floor of the House of Fraser department store on Oxford Street. It was decorated convincingly in all blues and pinks. It looks like a confection or a place of my childhood dreams. Once seated, we pored over the vast menu. Our Mom used to love Crumpets, so we had to do an order of those. Then we each did tea and scones. It was such a cute setup. As we sat and enjoyed it, we giggled listening to a small girl sitting with her mom and sister playing “imagine.” It was so sweet and entertaining to hear how vivid her imagination was!

Completely satiated by tea, we headed back to our Airbnb to pack up. It was a whirlwind of gathering things up and making sure we were putting enough in the extra bag so no one’s luggage would be overweight on the return journey. For our final dinner, we had planned to find some fish and chips for dinner. We got all excited over a particular place, but Bank Holiday struck again and it was closed when we walked over. We settled for another spot that was decent around the corner from our place, and then we headed back to finalize packing and catch some sleep before our 4 a.m. wake up call!

All in all, it was a wonderful trip. We’ll be forever grateful and thankful for our Aunt and Mom taking us there! It went too fast, but the taste of London we got was incredible. The people here were all very kind and helpful, and we will definitely be back in the future. Hopefully, this provides a good outline or inspiration for a future trip of yours. Let us know any questions below!

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The Dreamiest Joggers

Happy Monday y’all! Some of our Monday’s might be better than others *cough cough* Caitlin. She and my parents extended their weekend up north by an extra day. That’s alright, I still enjoyed my weekend down in Chicago visiting my twin brother. We always eat the best foods, and they always have fun events happening all summer like in Milwaukee. On the docket for tonight, is book club for Caitlin, my mom and I. We’re discussing Where The Crawdad’s Sing by Delia Owens. All three of us really enjoyed the book, and we can’t wait to hear everyone else’s opinions as well. Be sure to check out our Instagram stories tonight for a sneak peek of the cute setup and themed food/drinks.

We’re back today with our other item from Alaina Lynne Boutique. Having an athletically heavy background, you might have picked up that we live a more casual life. It might not be a stretch to say I used to live in sweats at least 50% of the time in high school, and probably 85% of the time in college. Back then, it was basically a uniform of whatever standard-issue sweatshirt or zip-up jacket or pants that we were issued. A lot of the time, the style of pants was pretty suspect. They’d be too short, or they’d be huge trying to get that extra length (to no avail).

Joggers seem to be here to stay, as we move more and more towards a more casual society. Businesses are making policy updates from business professional to business casual, or business casual to basically whatever you’re comfortable in. For a lot of people, this is a welcome change. Who wants to sit 8+ hours of the day, uncomfortable? While we still both work in professional settings, we are sure to make up for it after work and on the weekends.

You’ve read countless times the value we place on comfort. The relationship between style and comfort should be forever intertwined in our opinion. Enter these joggers. Wow, y’all. They are crazy comfortable. Like unbelievably soft. They feel like a second skin but like a baby’s flawless skin. I don’t know if that’s a weird analogy and I don’t care.

As you can see they fit both of us, really nicely. On Caitlin, they are full length to the ankle. Joggers shouldn’t really go longer than that. Our Mom got a different pair and kept trying to make them longer on her ankle, and I kept explaining that they’re meant to be high waisted, quit pulling them down! On me, these joggers are like mid-calf. Totally easy to wear pushed up a bit higher. They aren’t too tight either where they squeeze your calf and leave marks forever.

In a roundabout way, I’m basically telling you that you need these joggers. The stripes are a total classic. Plus whenever the stripes are thin, you never need to worry about them making you look larger, as is the concern with stripes. You’ll want to live in them once you put them on, so the only question is, what are you waiting for?! We can’t be the only ones who are looking for fun, comfortable and classy athleisure.

Go check out Alaina Lynne Boutique if you haven’t already. They have a carefully curated batch of clothing, and they’re happy to answer any questions for you on sizing! If you missed our last post on them, you need this shirt for summer. Check it out here!

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London Bridge Isn’t Falling Down

Onward we progress through our whirlwind of a trip to London! This post picks up where we left off, which is day 3. After our fun night out in the pubs (check our last post here for that story), we knew we wanted to get a quicker start on the day and hit up some of the tourist destinations. High on the list was the Tower of London, where they house the crown jewels. Much more beyond that, it has a storied history. I feel we only scratched the surface of visiting it.

We didn’t get a chance to join in one of the Yeoman tours (which start right inside the gates), because we were trying to meet up with a coworker of our Mom’s who lives in the London area. Instead, we beelined it for the queue to the Crown Jewels, which was impressively long for being earlier in the day. It grew even more staggering after we left for our coffee break meet-up and returned. Basically, if you’re heading to the Tower of London, hit that part up right away. Once inside, you might think you made it. The queue continues, but it was fun to see some of the crown jewels for sure. If it’s not your cup of tea, skip it!

We also went inside the actual Tower once we returned, and it was incredible to be inside such an ancient building. They had tons of armor on display, and after a while, we kind of breezed on past that. The chapel that is restored inside was quite incredible and worth sitting and listening to some history on. We could have spent more of our day here, but we want to move on and see some other stuff.

Once we left, we headed straight to the Tower Bridge; which is the infamous blue bridge you see in every tourist London pic. Not to be left out, we definitely snapped many as we walked across. The walk is easy compared to across the Brooklyn Bridge (as far as distance). We found ourselves parched, so we stopped into a tiny pub on a side street after getting lured by the promise of a brewery on the side of a historic building. It was all a lie, but we ended up with a pint, so it worked in our favor! The bar was in an old building, and it showed. Check out this hilarious picture of the doorway into their seating area. The good-natured gentleman below joined us for a picture since he couldn’t find the issue himself. We have to laugh about it sometimes, right?!

From there we wanted to figure out how to get to St. Paul’s Cathedral, and we ended up finding a bus route that got us close enough. It was fun riding the double-decker buses and sitting up top for a great view. Overall their metro transportation system was really flawless and impressive. We especially like that you can’t get charged more than 6 pounds a day using it. I also really appreciate that their Oyster cards are the heartier plastic material than NYC’s paper counterparts. But I digress. We realized as we arrived at St. Paul’s we couldn’t get inside because it was closed.

Obviously disappointing, but a peril of visiting on a Sunday I’m sure. The outside was still quite impressive. Onward we pushed, to see if anything else of interest was in the area. We rallied with a cup of coffee and then walked down the street to see if we could find another drink of sorts. St. Paul’s Cathedral seemed to be in an area that closes down on the weekend, but we ended up finding a delectable donut shop. We split two donuts, and they were a great treat to hold us over.

With that, we admitted defeat and headed back to our Airbnb to sit for a bit. We discovered our aunt had a ridiculously large blister on her heel and we all needed to get off our feet. Luckily we stopped by a grocery store and grabbed some wine for a little happy hour at home. We sat around and giggled for a while, as we searched for dinner options.

Caitlin is always interested in noodles; so we found an Italian place that was an easy walk from our place. Apparently, most people make reservations in London. We were questioned if we had one, but ultimately seated immediately. Our decorum must have been lacking throughout the trip. I had the coolest pasta dish that was basically all types of seafood. They poured it out of a paper bag, so it was still steaming and fresh. It was amazing. Caitlin had the pesto, which is always a good idea. Overall, a really nice dinner.

From there, we had already gone hard enough on happy hour and had such a late dinner, that we were ready to call it a night. Day three was in the books and a success. Come back next week for our final day!

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Alaina Lynne

Eeeeek! I can honestly never contain my excitement when I start writing a blog post with new to us (and you on the blog) retailers. I have too many thoughts and remarks that start to swirl through my head that I can’t possibly get out quick enough. So without further ado please meet Alaina Lynne Boutique! We stumbled upon the Instagram page and were quickly drawn to the classic trendy pieces.

We started interacting on Instagram simply because we liked the goods. Not too long after the lovely owner, Jennifer, shot us a sweet note to let us know that she was part of the tall girl tribe standing at 6’. We always love when people send simple notes like this because it instantly connects us. It helps initiates a more personal “internet friendship”.  We learned that the boutique is online but they do pop up shops around Maryland, DC, and Virginia. So if you are in those areas, you should feel lucky! If you’re wondering about the name; it’s a combination of both Jennifer’s middle name as well as her sisters. We also love a good sister duo. It also helps that like us, Jennifer can appreciate sarcasm. Are we long-distance best friends? Seems like we are well on our way.

One of their main goals is to provide women with a versatile wardrobe. Ummm could this align more with our goal for y’all? We always like to reiterate that we don’t just post things to post them. We obviously post often about certain big-box retailers but with smaller boutiques and niche companies, we do our homework. We ask questions like what are your values, goals, why are you doing what you do? Do you think us posting your items aligns with all of the said questions? If any of the answers are no or we don’t think the items will benefit you; you will straight up never see them. No questions asked. Unless it’s a tall fail. We share those solely for that reason.

Let’s get back to it. Alaina Lynne is definitely not strictly for taller women. However, since we are blessed that the owner is tall herself there are so many tall friendly items! And if you are worried about which items these are, send a DM to their Instagram page and she will happily guide you through fit, sizing recommendations, Etc. To be honest, it was like having a personal shopper. Jennifer picked our pieces and recommended which size to do in each based on our typical sizes and everything fits like a dream.

The first item that we are featuring is this Knot Your Average Button Up which we are certain you NEED. This top is going to be on the heavy rotation this summer. Not only is the style as cute as can be, but the color combo is also perfect for summer. This top paired so nicely with both white denim and regular denim. I for one cannot wait to pair it with shorts too!

From the first time I slipped into this top to try it on to the many times I have worn it already, I cannot get over the comfort. It is light, breathes easy, and hangs exactly as I want it. Both Jenilee and I always struggle with finding tops that are truly comfortable in the shoulders but this one more than fits the bill. We recommend this top for most frames. If you have broader shoulders like us: girl, what are you waiting for?

I loved being able to share this company with all of you today and hope you enjoy giving their site or Instagram a look. Let us know what you think and what items are your favorites! Stay tuned for a look into one of our other favorite Alaina Lynne items early next week. Not sure which item we like more!

Happy Friday Eve Fam! Stop back tomorrow for a bit more on London! Here is the link to the striped top!

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London Calling

If you missed it, we visited London over Memorial Day weekend! Our first post can be read here. We’re back with Day 2 of our whirlwind surprise trip, today. The jet lag caused us to be slow-moving, so we drank some french press coffee as we got ready for the day. Once we got out the door, we made our first stop at Paul’s which is a local franchised bakery/coffee shop. Definitely had to grab all varieties of croissants. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, so we sat outside and sipped our Americano coffee and munched our pain au chocolat and almond croissants.

Once fortified by the baked goods, we hopped on the tube to get to Camden for the Camden Market. It is such a funky, colorful area. We spent many hours wandering through it, in and out of the little stalls eyeing the little trinkets and wares. Caitlin called me over and to my excitement found a perfectly distressed vintage Levi denim jacket. I bartered the seller down a bit, and it was mine! If you’re on the hunt for a jean jacket, head to your local thrift shop or Goodwill. Don’t think twice about hitting up the men’s section. Jean jackets are completely unisex, and all the different fits are “in” right now anyway. Suffice to say I wasn’t going to find a women’s size that fit me this well.

After I bought my dream of a jean jacket, we continued on through the market to find some sustenance. We had heard about Honest(?) burgers and there happened to be a mini restaurant/stall in the market. You know we had to grab one and check it out. As someone who loves a burger, I was duly impressed. We also split some fish and chips for the authentic London experience. There are so many little shops to wander through, you can easily take up the bulk of your day there. Before we left, we stopped in a brewery that was on the second level. Whenever traveling, Caitlin enjoys finding some local breweries and we enjoyed an IPA.

On such a lovely day, we felt compelled for a wander through one of the many beautiful parks London has. Regent Park was close enough and in the same direction as our Airbnb. We ended up strolling through and then stopping for a bit of people watching on a bench. One of my favorite things in new cities is seeing different fashion and especially how people mix fashion and functionality when they’re doing heavier walking than our driving-centric city.

We did a bit of research on dinner that night and settled on Indian Food. In Milwaukee, we don’t have a lot of options and we had heard London was renowned for their restaurants. Dishoom seemed the obvious choice via Yelp. A side note, Yelp doesn’t seem to have a huge standing in London. Might want to check different apps for food research like OpenTable or the like. But Yelp came through for us on this find. It was a moody, almost speakeasy-like vibe. Maybe it had to do with being seated in the basement. Totally a lovely intimate spot. We ordered a bunch of small plates again and tried everything to our heart’s desire. All the recommendations our waiter made were spot on, and we had a wonderful experience. We would recommend in a heartbeat.

After dinner, we were in the mood for some ice cream. Being in the theater district, we headed down the street and found a Gelato place rather quickly. As we were enjoying the flavors, we noticed there were several pubs in the immediate vicinity. What better way to round out the night than grabbing a cocktail? We walked in and immediately found a perfectly place table (or so we thought). After we settled in with our drinks, we realized we were next to a bachelor or as they say Stag party. They were having a GOOD time, aka they were feeling the booze. Before we knew it, they were basically sitting at our table with us, talking about mainly about our height and more oddly, hand size. They were equal parts enamored with it and seemingly terrified.

Encounters of that sort have a bewildering feeling. You’re never sure if you’re being celebrated for your height or insulted. At least that’s my feelings on it. You can hardly reason with someone that inebriated but we did our best to correct them at opportune moments. All in all, it was a unforgettable night of laughs out in London! Stay tuned for the rest of our trip.

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