Vegas Day 1

Today was a long but awesome day!  We were up bright and early to head to the airport at 6 a.m.  Our flight ended up sitting on the runway for over an hour while we got de-iced.  We made up most of the time in the air though and only landed a little after our scheduled time.

We hung out, had some lunch (my Cobb salad was delicious), did a little bit of gambling, and then got ready for Beatles Love.

I don't have a lot of time to post but I'll hit the highlights.  While I was in line to get a cocktail (All You Need is Love, it was delicious), I ran into a friend from law school!  It was crazy seeing Fouz in Vegas when I haven't seen him since graduation!  We caught up a bit, which was really nice.  Then, time for the show.  It was AMAZING.  Seriously.  I absolutely loved it!  I'll write a much more detailed post about it later, but we'll just say it involved some trick skating, crazy acrobatics, props being extended into the audience, and fantastic music.  If you get a chance to see it...DO IT!

Then, after Love, we decided to grab some dinner.  It was a little weird to be eating dinner at midnight our time, but we went with it.  We went back to our hotel and decided to go to craftsteak.  When we got there we ran into my uncle, cousin, and one of our reps.  We chatted when we waited for our table and then we were seated.  I think I looked like a deer in headlights when I saw the prices on the menu:

Honestly, I think this is probably the most expensive meal I've ever eaten in my life.  We all went with the Wagyu beef filet, baby spinach, asparagus, and pureed Yukon potatoes.  Oh. my. goodness.  It was fan-freaking-tastic.  

But, it's now 3:15 a.m. my time (12:15 a.m. Vegas time) and I'm overly full and completely exhausted.  We have a big day tomorrow with grandpa's birthday present and the Hardi icebreaker, so I need to get some shut eye.  I've been up for over 22 hours, so I think I deserve some shut eye :)  I'll post pictures from tomorrow's trip...they should be good!  Stay warm all of my Midwesterners!

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

I hope you have a wonderful day today!  We'll see you tonight for some cake and ice cream! 

Early Birthday Present

My husband gave me my birthday present last night because I will be out of town on my actual birthday.

He did not get the reaction he was expecting when I opened it.  I was confused at first because I have a Kindle on my Droid (which I absolutely LOVE).  This is why I'm assuming he decided to get me an actual Kindle.  I considered returning it, but after he explained why the real Kindle is better, I decided to keep it, and I'm glad I did.  I learned today that the Kindle on my Droid and my Kindle will sync each other.  So, if I read a few chapters of a book on my Droid, it will automatically open to where I left off if I go to read it on my Kindle.  Now, THAT is pretty awesome.   

I'm still learning all of the new things on it, and I'm pretty excited about it.  The User Guide is super long, and I'm only a couple chapter in.  The only thing I wish it had is a back-lit screen, like my Droid.  But, Ryan took care of that by buying me leather cover with a pull out light.  He also got me the version with Wi-fi and 3G so I can download a book from pretty much anywhere.  Another huge plus, the battery will last for a month, unlike my phone which pretty much has to be charged every evening.

Thank you for my gift Ryan!  I love you!!!

Ice Festival

This evening Ryan, Ben, and I all hit up the International Ice Festival in Plymouth.  It was freezing cold, but we had a great time!  Here are a few of my favorite shots:

 I thought this chair was super cute!  Ben refused to sit on it with us, so he took the picture.

 The puppy with the scarf was too cute!

 The octopus was my absolute favorite.  It was part of the carving competition, I'll have to check back tomorrow to see which sculptures won.

 I absolutely LOVE this picture (check out their faces).  We tried to go into the Box Bar to grab a cool beer (they have almost any beer you could imagine), but they were JAMMED!  There wasn't even any room to stand and wait.

 It's kind of hard to see, but it's a bottle of wine and a wine glass that was sponsored by Fiamma Grill.

The T-rex was one of Ryan's favorites.  They also had a stegosaurus and another little dinosaur.

After checking out the sculptures and watching the snow boarders for a bit, we headed down to Cellar 849 to pick up some of my wine and possibly finally try the authentic Napoletana pizza.  But they were also extremely packed and completely sold out of my wine.  We decided to head out of Plymouth for dinner since it was so busy.  Ben got a craving for pizza after smelling the yummy in Cellar 849, so we headed to Buddy's Pizza.  As usual the food was great!  And now, we're off to a movie marathon:  7 Years in Tibet, The Social Network, Dinner for Schmucks, and A Serious Man. 

Dinner & Karaoke

Last night we all went out for dinner and karaoke.  Dinner ended up being a Gaucho's Brazilian Steakhouse.  I can't say I mind that at all, because I love that place.  I think I'm a big fan because I can eat a little bit of so many different things.  As usual, the food was excellent.  Although, I have to say that the bacon they used on the filet and chicken was super salty.  I wonder if they had a brine accident in the back.  Ben tried a Brazilian beer, Xingu, which he seemed to enjoy.  After dinner, I contemplated getting some dessert because they have a papaya mousse that is to die for, but I was totally stuffed.  We had a really good time though:

After dinner, we decided to head up to 4 Friends for some drinks.  We won a $50 gift certificate for our Wizard of Oz costumes, so we decided we should put it to good use.  When we got there, we found out it was karaoke night.  Ashley and Ryan immediately filled out a card to sing "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls.  They convinced Ben to do backup vocals -- I think he was Sporty Spice :)

After they sang, "Kevin & Janice" we called up for their song.  Obviously, my parents didn't fill out a ticket to sing so someone did it for them.  Of course my dad refused to go up, so Ashley filled in for Kevin.  They sang "I Got You Babe" by Sonny & Cher.  Then, it was time for Ben to get up and sing "Leroy Brown" by none other than Jim Croce.  He did a really good job, and I had a lot of fun singing along.  Everyone threw a fit and kept calling me part of the NFL (No Fun League) because I didn't want to sing.  Finally, I got sick of it and agreed to sing a song.  And what happens?  In the middle of the song, some drunk girl trips over all of the cords and shuts down the whole karaoke machine.  Yeah, so I had to sing the song AGAIN. 

All in all it was a great night!  Today we plan to see the ice sculptures downtown Plymouth.  Buuut, it's like 6 degrees (-10 wind chill) and I'm not sure that our Southern guest wants to wander around freezing his butt off.  So, we'll see. 

Battle Creek

Yesterday, I spent the day in Battle Creek looking at commercial property with my dad and grandpa.  We went out there around the same time last year to look at buildings and didn't really find what we were looking for.  We were hoping to have better luck this year, especially since a lot of commercial property has been sitting on the market for some time and gone through a number of price cuts.

We ended up looking at about 8 buildings, but we only went into 2 of them.  And, unfortunately, none of them were what we were looking for.  There was one building that we all had high hopes for, but once we got inside there was more work than we wanted to do to make the building functional for us.  It was a big building for a good price on a busy main drag, but too costly to fix up, and apparently in a township that is difficult to deal with.  We didn't find our building, but I do have to say that if you are looking for property in the Battle Creek area, you should look up Chip Spranger.  He's been wonderful to deal with over the last year and he's an all around great guy.  He's going to keep his eyes open for a building that will suit our needs.  I hope he finds something before we hit our second anniversary of working with him.

After we finished with the buildings, we decided to stop at Firekeepers Casino for dinner.  They have a really good restaurant, Nibi, that we ate at the last time we looked for a building.  Last night, I had the pan seared sea bass with chanterelle and lobster risotto, lemon thyme beurre blanc, and lemon scented micro salad.  It was delicious!  The risotto was to DIE FOR!  I also got a side of the sweet potato pave, and it was absolutely scrumptious.  I ended up having to pass on dessert because I was too full from dinner, but my dad had a blue cheese cheesecake (ew!) and my grandpa had an apple tart.  And of course, since we were at a casino we did a little bit of gambling.  I won a little bit at slots and video roulette, but then I promptly lost it in the Indiana Jones slot machine.  It's okay, I still came out ahead like $6.

Tonight we plan to head over to happy hour after work with Ben, and then tomorrow we're going to take him to the ice festival in Plymouth.  I hope I get some really good pictures like last year :)  

Ben's here!

Ben, Ryan's youngest brother, got into town last night.  He's here by way of Savanna on his way to Phoenix.  Totally not on "his way" you say?  Yeah, that's what I thought too when Ryan said Ben was coming to visit.  Michigan is actually pretty much the OPPOSITE direction he'd be wanting to travel in.  Then, I was informed that Ben is going on a nationwide tour on his way back to Phoenix, meeting up with a bunch of friends and family that have scattered across the country.  Ben has already had a few stops on the east coast and Ohio.  Now, he's staying with us for a week to recharge his batteries before heading on the last half of his journey.

For dinner last night, we went to The Claddagh for some delicious Irish food.  I was quite excited to see the beef stew back on the menu (it has been removed the last time we were there).  There was a lot of banter between Ryan and Ben, per usual, and I enjoyed myself.  After dinner, we all vegged in front of the TV for a little while and then hit the sack. 

Ryan has another dentist appointment today to get the rest of his teeth fixed, so he'll be home late.  I'm not sure what's on the agenda for tonight, but I foresee it probably being a relaxing one.