VEGAS BABY VEGAS!!

January 25th - 29th

Jed and I were able to steal away to Vegas for a long weekend and we had a fantastic time. Vegas one of those cities that we just love and enjoy visiting as often as we can.

The trip started off a little rocky and spent about 6 hours in the Memphis airport due to plane issues. But once we got to Vegas we hit the ground running. Our first stop...

It has been too long since our last visit to In-N-Out.

We spent the rest of our day walking around the strip, shopping and a little gambling. I even won $6.25 off a dollar! How fun. :)

On Saturday, we found a unique place to eat off the strip called eat. It was a great way to start the day before and afternoon of shopping at Vintage shopping.

 The vintage shopping was pretty much a bust but it was really fun to look at all the old school stuff that reminded us of days of old. We headed back to the strip for more sightseeing and for an adult milkshake at Holsteins and to sit and people watch at one of the newer hotels, The Cosmopolitan.

We spent the evening walking around and hanging out and finished our night with a super late dinner at Trevi at Caesar's Palace.

Sunday we were starting to feeling the pressure to see and do it all before we have to leave on Monday night so we started up and out pretty early. We did a lot on Sunday.

Trevi Fountain - Caesar's

Jed and "Alan" from the Hangover

Fountains at Caesar's 

Taste testing Popcornopolis vs Garrett's

Statue of David 

Tasting different coke's from around the world

The Best Soda

 Before walking down to our show at the Wynn hotel, we found a super fun Beijing Noodle restaurant called Beijing Noodle 9. They make hand made noodles everyday and it is so amazing to watch then do it. The restaurant design and atmosphere was so much fun.

Le Reve Show in the Wynn Hotel

Before the show

Le Reve - the circular water stage

After the show, we headed to the Sugar Factory for dessert before calling it a night.

We set an alarm to be up and out by 7am on Monday morning. We found the BEST deal for a breakfast buffet. We went to Tix4Tonight and purchased 2 tickets to the Monte Carlo brunch for $2 each!! Then when we went to The Big Belly Buffet at the Monte Carlo, we only had to pay $8 each to get it. We basically got 2 for the price of one. We will definitely do that every time we go back.

It was so much fun to be up and out at that hour. It was so interesting to see all the work that goes on in the early more hours in Vegas. A few people were still gambling (most likely just still up from the night before), business men and women were all dressed for conferences, dusting slot machines, and re-tabling the tops of crap's tables and blackjack tables. It was so fun.

After breakfast, Jed played the tables for a little while and then we headed over to the New York - New York hotel. We spent some time learning about how betting on sports events worked and we even placed a bet on the Super Bowl.

After spending the morning playing some cards, walking around and learning about Vegas Sports betting, we headed to Minus 5. It is a bar that is made entirely of ice. It was so much fun! Being that it was only about 2 on a Monday afternoon, we pretty much were the only people that were there for a lot of the time we were in there. Because everything is made of ice they will not let cell phones or camera in the bar since it could "melt" the seats, tables or bars. (We think it was just there way of making an extra buck...they have a photographer that takes pictures and sells them for WAY too much...) But we took a few pictures after the experience. But I would HIGHLY recommend this place and the more friends you can go with the better.

You can see our pictures at the bar here:
Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3

After one last trip to In-N-Out, we headed down to the old Vegas strip, Freemont Street for the Freemont Street Experience. We had a great time walking around and watching the World's Largest Video board and playing an old favorite Vegas game, horse racing.

After our time down at Freemont Street, we headed back to the Vegas Strip for a quick dinner at Grimaldi's (not as good as the original restaurant in Brooklyn, but pretty good). We couldn't leave without seeing the Fountains of Bellagio so we ran to see them before heading back to the airport to head home. It couldn't have been more perfect and cliche when the fountains were choreographed to "Time to Say Goodbye".

We had such a great time in Vegas and we can't wait for our next trip there.

Going Bowling!

December 23th - December 29th

This year for Christmas we went bowling! With a 6-6 record, we were eligible to play in a bowl game this year and the Russell Athletic Bowl in Orlando, Florida invited us to come down and play Rutgers on December 28th.

Just like most bowl games, the team and many of the support staff head down to the bowl the week before to get prepared for the game and this year was no different. We were so excited and thankful to get the opportunity to be invited to fly down with the team on the 23rd.

December 23rd

The festivities started as soon as we got there. Once we landed in Orlando, we got our luggage to our rooms, had a team lunch and got back on the buses to go to Universal Studios for the rest of the day.

Me, Sam, Jed, Tyler, Tom, Rachel, Sophie, Nolan & Brian

Sophie, Brian, Rachel, Nolan, Tyler, Jed

As we were having dinner that night with Jed's office, one of his students, Sophie, asked everyone, "What was your favorite part of the day?". I loved this and think I will highlight each day at the bowl with "what my favorite part of the day was.

So for day one, my favorite part of that day was the Butterbeer at the Harry Potter area of Universal.

December 24th

Today was a pretty uneventful day, it was spent just hanging out in the room, driving Jimmy to the airport and reading by the pool. The evening on the other hand was a lot of fun. It started with a Christmas Eve service lead by the football chaplain, Johnny Shelton. It was so amazing! After the service, we went Disney hotel hopping with 4 of the students that work in Jed's office. Jimmy gave us a great idea to check out how all the different hotels (Disney's Contemporary Resort, Animal Kingdom Lodge, The Grand Floridian Resort, and the Polynesian Resort)  were decorated and it was the perfect way to spend Christmas Eve.

Disney's Contemporary Resort

Disney's Contemporary Resort

 Disney's Polynesian Resort

 Disney's Polynesian Resort

 Disney's Polynesian Resort

The Grand Floridian Resort

The Grand Floridian Resort

 

Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge

Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge

 My favorite part of today: The Christmas Eve service with my football family.

December 25th

Today started out with Christmas morning in our hotel room. Tom, Brian, the 7 video students and Jed & I spent the morning trading Secret Santa gifts and White Elephant gifts. It was such a fun way to spend Christmas morning in a hotel room.

The video team headed off to practice after breakfast and I head to Magic Kingdom. HELPFUL HINT: Never go to Magic Kingdom on Christmas day. UGH. I spent 4 hours waiting at Epcot to get on the Monorail to get to Magic Kingdom which they had closed due to being "full".

But at 4 o'clock, I was able to get into Magic Kingdom, just when the football team and Jed and company got there as well. We spent the evening riding rides, walking around the park and acting like kids. It was so much fun.

Sam, Sophie, Rachel, Jed, Brian & John

My favorite part of today: Christmas morning with the video family

December 26th

Today was the day I set aside to shop! I was really excited about today and the outlets that were just 5 miles away. The town offers a trolley that goes up and down the main road and at the end of the trolley was the outlets. So around noon, I set off for the outlets. I hung out on the trolley reading my ipad for almost an hour and a half before I decided to just walk the last mile and a half to the outlets. The outlets were CRAZY! And I was determined to make the most of my time there as it took so long to get there. There were people everywhere with large suitcaseS ready to fill with deals they had found. After a few hours, I headed back on the trolley. It took only an hour to get back which was night. That night, we went with Tom and Brian to Fogo de Chao, a Brazilian steakhouse. It was so much fun to watch the 3 guys go gaga over all the different meals on sticks that were brought to the table. After dinner, Jed & I met up with 5 of the video students and we went to go see the late showing of Les Miserables. What a fantastic movie!

My favorite part of today: Les Miserables

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December 27th

SEA WORLD! Jed had the day off for the most part today so we got tickets to Sea World just the two of us. We walked to the park and got in at 9:30am and stayed all day long. We checked out all the roller coasters and shows we could get in. At time we even ran through the park from one show to the other. It was just the best time of the two of us being silly and having a fun time.

We finally left the park around 7:30 and met up with Tom to go to a favorite restaurant that we didn't even know what in Orlando, Giordano's. We absolutely love this deep dish Chicago pizza and were so excited to share the experience with Tom.

My favorite part of today: Manta rollercoaster with Jed.

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December 28th

Game Day!
This is why we came to Orlando, today was the big day. In the morning, a group of us went to the stadium to set up pom poms for all the Hokie fans.

And after packing up the meeting rooms, Jed and I did a little speed walking to Pointe Orlando and got a pre-game lunch from Adobe Gila's. It was fun to hang out a little with him before we headed off to the game. Tom was in Florida to visit his mom for the holiday's so he drove down to go to the game with me. It was fun to have a friend to go to the game with.

It was a hard fought game and in typical Hokie fashion, our boys were able to pull out a win in overtime. I couldn't be more proud of my team and the coaches for a very hard fought game and season. Congratulations Hokies!

After the game, we went back to the hotel and celebrated the victory in the hospitality suite with friends.

Anna, Jed & Brian

John & I

My favorite part of today: When the Hokies brought out the flag tying the fallen Sandy Hook students & teachers with our fallen Hokies. Something I will never forget. All 58 will always be remembered.

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