the birthday staycation.

this year my birthday was on a thursday which means i got to stretch out over a few days! i turned 27 for those interested in knowing (hehe) and couldnt believe it was actually here. sometimes it feels like forever for birthdays to come around. i am a big fan of birthdays and think they should always be celebrated in the way the birthday person wants!

the day started off at work when i arrived and had some delicious treats on my desk:) i havent had things like this in quite awhile and couldnt help but have one! dang, they were good. i also got another huge cupcake during the day and lots of birthday presents via email haha. plus the song, i cant lie that i do like it a little:)

homemade whoppie pies!

told you it was huge:)

that night i had plans to meet my parents and cousin at the cheesecake factory! it seems thats a standard now since it was the same place we went last year lol. but really, who says no to the cheesecake factory?? this year was a little different since i am seeing my nutritionist and that meant ordering quite differently. did you know they have a skinny menu?! omg, seriously so good and tons of options! mom and both ordered off that one and i totally stole a bite off my cousins plate of alfredo hehe. it was delicious and i couldnt help but miss it just a little. i got another birthday song and 2 pieces of cheesecake! ha, just kidding. i had promised joanie no cheesecake that night so i didnt order a piece of my own but did have a few bites of the other 2 pieces. man they were good. i kept it all to a minimum since i had an appointment to see her in the morning and we were trying to be down a pound. (ps who tries to lose a pound in 2 days with 1 of them being their birthday, sheesh its hard)

saturday though was my big day to celebrate! i have wanted to stay in a room on the strip forever. i never have and decided since it was my birthday thats exactly what i was going to do. so i found a smokin deal at mandalay bay and wanted to keep it low key. it wasnt a huge year so a big party wasnt necessary, but you gotta do something:) so saturday morning i got up, knocked out my 10 miles, took a short nap, treated myself to a sparkly pink pedicure, then richard and i headed to mandalay bay to check in at about noon! our plan was to be at the pool by 1p and it actually worked pretty well. kristle came to join us and we were ready for some fun in the sun! we found 3 chairs and a waitress was by fairly soon to take our drink order. oh heck yes i was drinking haha. dont worry, i had permission lol.

our view for the day!

the afternoon drifted by as lounged, had lunch, took a few spins around the lazy river and the wave pool, and did a hefty amount of people watching. it was totally the way i wanted to spend my birthday! we also had a special treat we had concocted earlier in the week, drunken gummy bears:) since monday these little guys had been swimming around in a pool of vodka soaking up the goodness and they were a delicious treat on a hot day!

yum, gummy bears!

later on tiffany came down to hang out with us and go to dinner at the cantina inside the shops. like i said, very low-key:) we listened to the hilarious marichi band that sang me happy birthday and a johnny cash song along with every other party that had a birthday in the house! i had these lobster tacos that were a-mazing we spent the night chatting away. afterwards we headed up to the foundation room at the top of the hotel. well after the 3rd degree by the guy working the desk about how long we would be there and how much money we were planning to spend. it was the weirdest thing, but we made it past! the view was amazing and the drinks were some of the strongest ones i might have ever had haha. it wasnt as great as i thought it was going to be, but the view made up for it:)

sorry its little a dark:/

we were all pretty tired from the day so as tiffany headed home richard and i went back to our room and spent the night curled up watching friends:) it was totally what i was looking for! getting up the next morning was rough from such a comfortable bed and knowing we had to go home:/ we ate breakfast at the hotel just to stretch it a little longer before heading to the mall for my birthday shopping spree! i have been dying for new clothes for what seems like forever, so that was my present from richard:)

this birthday was great, i did exactly what i wanted and finally got to cross staying on the strip off my list! seriously if you havent you should very soon:)

the three year anniversary.

it was 1 week ago today that i got to officially celebrate my 3 year anniversary with my love:) we did do most of our celebrating the weekend before since we only really see each other late at night when comes home during the week. so lets rewind to that saturday...

after a 12 miler that morning, a long nap, and the normal saturday errands we were finally ready to celebrate! richard kept telling me we had somewhere to be on the strip at 730p so we needed to dinner early. so we decided to on red lobster (after many hints from him about crab legs) and it was just as good as always! and seriously who can resist those cheesy bisquits:) we hightailed it out of there later than he was hoping because he got caught up talking to the waiter about who knows what.

now i was sure this whole time i knew we were going to see a cirque de solei show. richard talks about wanting to see one often (i do too) but i was really hoping for something different. as were driving i notice we keep passing all the ones i was pretty sure he wants to see. we pull into caesars and again i am sure i know what we are going to see, celine dion. i love her, its true, but i have seen her once already. she was amazing just not what i was hoping for. then he totally surprises me with il divo playing that night instead!! they are an amazing opera/pop/broadway type foursome from all over the world, literally. they had an amazing orchestra for this us tour and it was so different than i even imagined. i had seen commercials that they were coming to town and told richard i would love to see them, but it was something i never expected! seriously people, if you havent heard of them or have skipped out on seeing them you need to asap.

afterward we walked around for a bit stopping in the nike store to check out the olympic stuff in which i proceeded to buy another tank top (but i am in love). next we stopped at the cheesecake factory to take home some dessert. i was wayyy too full after dinner to have anything, but a few hours later i was ready for something sweet :) we took it home and enjoyed it in our pjs after a insanely long line to get out of the caesars parking lot. check out my absolute favorite song by them :)

sunday i slept as long as possible and then we decided to venture out to see the new spiderman movie. omg was it good! kinda long, but you dont really notice until you get out of the movie and look at the time. the theater was pretty empty which was nice and we could pick our seats. that night we picked up pei wei on the way home and i noticed i had only really eaten 2 meals at home all weekend. something i was definitely ok with :)

as wednesday came i started to get a little nervous in giving richard his present. you see i wasnt totally sure what to get him until early the week before. and when i tried to add on in the nike store he immediately said no, i apparently had told him no clothes. then i really started to get nervous. he was very set in that he didnt want it until our actual day, which really meant he couldnt have it until he got home that night. waiting seemed to take forever! earlier that day when i returned to work from lunch i had the most beautiful pink roses waiting for me :) they smelled fantastic!

be-a-utiful.

finally richard came home and immediately tore into his present sitting on the couch. the smile on his face when he realized it was the shoes he had been eyeing from adidas for the last month made the wait definitely worth it. i knew i had made the right choice.

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we have come a long way, he and i. there have been ups and downs, crazy adventures, changes for us both, and more laughs than either of us knew when we started this thing 3 years ago. happy anniversary to us!

love. love.

the around the wold new years adventure.

living in las vegas, you have access to some pretty cool things, new years is no exception. every year they close down las vegas blvd from the stratosphere to mandalay bay and turn it into a huge party. the exits off the freeway are closed, side streets are parking lots, and hundreds of thousands of people all come together to ring in the new year. also many of the hotels launch fireworks off the roof that you can see all over the valley for like 10 minutes! they even have music playing to go along with it on the radio and tv stations. i have been down there twice, not in about 5 years, and it is a blast! you see the craziest things down there. richard had never been and didnt really want to, until this year.

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after another house party last year i was really hoping to do something different to ring in 2012. a couple of the girls from work had told me about their new years and it was so different i hoped they would do it again this year. so in may i got a facebook invite (as did richard) for the around the world new years adventure. we would start in the afternoon in a bar/hotel/place that corresponded to it being midnight in that country. for example chinatown for new years in china, the paris hotel for paris, etc. i thought it would be a blast but richard wasnt quite convinced. after thanksgiving though he came to me and said, lets join the girls and something completely different, hell yeah!

here was the plan:
3pm- italy- venetian
4pm- ireland- o'shea's
5pm- FOOD/HYDRATE
6pm- faulkland islands- margaritaville (flamingo)
7pm- rio de janiero- pampas churrasciara brazillian grille (miracle mile shops @ planet hollywood)
8pm- FOOD/HYDRATE
9pm- new york- nyny casino
10pm- mexico city- diablos
11pm- strip 
12pm-midnight!- strip


saturday afternoon we decided to all meet at angelas so we could carpool and leave at 230p so we could get to the venetian on time. i had timed my run and nap to include food afterward to make sure we could leave at 145p to grab cash on the way. during my nap i head back from angela on some logistic things (jackets/purses/girl things) and found out that we were actually going to carry camelbaks full of our liquor of choice. this meant we had to leave a few minutes early to grab it at the store, but no big deal. the girls were also making t-shirts to wear, which richard was really not excited about, so we could find each other.

we showed up right at 230p afraid they would be waiting on us to find that they had just started on shirts. finally at 415p we actually left and sat in traffic to arrive late to osheas. i just wanted to drink at this point, but wasnt really sure what i was supposed to be doing. if we had these camelbaks full of alcohol we didnt need to buy a drink/shot at every place, so why were we going to all these places? the whole night was a little confusing so richard and i decided drinking was the way to go.

everywhere we went seemed to take forever. there were tons of people on the strip but once they opened the street it was sooo much easier to get around. we did go back to the car after eating at margaritaville to get warmer things and i dropped the camelbak. we werent drinking out of it and i didnt want to carry it anymore. for some reason the car stop was the longest break i have ever seen in my life and the rest of the group decided to make the night more about getting the t-shirts signed from all the people we were meeting rather than actually going to all our stops.

i should have known we were in trouble
when this was the 1st signature of the night,
on jodis dad by a super gorgeous girl!

our pitbull look-a-like at dinner!

as we started walking to nyny to celebrate at 9pm richard and i got separated from the group leaving us a great time to talk. they were walking so slow and stopping every 5 seconds that we just saundered on our own. we even discussed what we are thinking about for next year! definitely over the big house party thing, and probably not going to wander the strip all night next time. were actually thinking about going somewhere new or getting a room on the strip and having a late late dinner and celebrating in the hotel or going outside just for midnight. i like this new, we dream together thing:)

we found out later this is what the
rest of the group was doing haha!

once finally finding our group at nyny we decided it was time for serious drinks and the others grabbed some hot dogs. it got out of the street for awhile and some much needed aid haha. after leaving we headed up to the bellagio to meet one of our group members brother's. again nice to get out of the cold and sit for a little while. we made sure though to leave no later than 1115p to get outside to ring in the new year right! it was starting to get packed inside and outside so we knew we had to get going.

in las vegas serious drinks means these guys!

we weaved our way toward the paris/ballys so we could be close to our car so we could get out as soon as possible. it wasnt long before we were getting ready to countdown the last minute it was finally here! everyone joined in as we got to the last 10 seconds and then there was confetti and yelling and kissing everywhere! i got to ring in the new year the best way possible for the 3rd year in a row, with my love :) the fireworks were so beautiful and we could see them from a couple different hotels!

waiting...waiting.

the countdown!

next to paris.

over caesars.

once the fireworks were over it was time to go. they usher you off pretty quickly so they can clean up the street. the problem is you cant get into any of the hotels unless you are staying there. since we were parked at paris we tried though to get in the back way through ballys which only worked because dave had a membership card!! we were all exhausted at this point and tired of all the crowds. finally in the cars after our goodbyes to the other car we headed out of the garage to the back road to find it dead stopped. it took us almost 2 hours to get back to angelas!

as i stumbled to my car from the exhaustion with my extra layers i started to get hungrier and hungrier. now i know im in training and not supposed to, but we totally went to del taco on our way home and it was amazing! seriously its only that good when your up super late or have been drinking. that night richard and i actually fell asleep on the couch together after eating and woke up just enough to brush our teeth and actually go to bed together.

when i woke up the next morning i thought i would be a lot more sore than i actually was. i started thinking about the night before and all the things we saw with 300,000 of our closest friends on the strip. i realized it wasnt exactly what we thought or hoped, but we had a really good time! definitely something we can cross off our bucket list. and at the end of the night i got to kiss him at midnight, which is all i really wanted anyway:)