Wild Bill's Spooktacular!
My motto these days seems to be "better late than never!" So here is the Wild Bill's Spooktacular! I'm not one to frequent Wild Bill's often, but I have to say that for Halloween it's pretty awesome! It's amazing the creativity that comes out around Halloween, and this is one people watching experience you can't miss out on!
Paul used to be big on throwing Halloween parties, but this is the 2nd year we've gone to Wild Bill's and it does not disappoint! I'd say my only complaint is they didn't get to the Costume Contests soon enough!
Check out some of these awesome customs and at the bottom we have pictures of the winners for the Scariest and Most Original!
We've got our friend Matt dress as the guy from Beastie Boys Sabotage, and with him Gloria as a gangster, me and Paul (can you guess what I am??), "Storey" (Kristin) as a Gothic flapper, and our Robert as a bath salt zombie... There was so many more though!!!
We had a couple of devils, Curtis is a Transformer guy and his girlfriend Natacha is a french maid! There was a zombie alien dad and baby and a zombie version of the Mad Hatter and Alice!
Now for the winners... We stuck around for the Scariest Contest and the Most Original.
For the most original, it was between Kiss' Gene Simmons and the Ghostbusters' Stay Puft Marshmallow Man! And the winner was Marshmallow Man!!! And for Scariest, it was between the evil puppet master and this crazy barbarian skull man (I don't remember what he was calling himself) and the winner was the Barbarian Skull Man! He was definitely scary! Of course I kind of thought the Puppet Master one was cooler!
Hope you enjoyed! To see more awesome pictures and costumes check out the full gallery here! Oh and by the way... if you're still wondering - I was FireFox the web browser! ;)
Atlanta Greek Festival!
A few weeks back we went to the Atlanta Greek Festival with our friends, Elaine and John, and their family. This is an Annual Tradition for Elaine's family as she is very much Greek! The Festival is held at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Atlanta. It was pretty wild as they have to shuttle people over due to the large and growing turn-out every year!
We parked just off Clairmont road and caught the bus over to the festivities! We were able to get some awesome Greek food (Paul and I LOVE Gyro's), check out the shops, listen to some live Greek music, watch the traditional Greek Dancing and of course (my favorite) check out the bake sale!
I was hoping to embed the video Paul took of the Greek Dancing, but I couldn't get it to work. SO click here to see the dancing!
And I'm ending the post with my favorite part! The bake sale! I got Baklava of course, Kourabiedes, and I think Finikia. It was all super delicious and Paul also got a Baklava sundae! Oh My!!!
Chunk's Day at The Georgia Dachshund Races!
We've had Chunk, our dachshund for almost 3 years, and have wanted to bring him to the races ever since we brought the little guy home! He was lucky enough to go to Halloweenie last year, but unfortunately Paul and I missed out on it as we were out-of-town. Our friend Robin was nice enough to take him last year.
Paul has designed the brochure for the Races for these past two years and we were finally about to make it out to let Chunk with run with his kind! We had high hopes for Chunk Master as he is quite the runner at home.
Our friend Gina and her mini doxie Ella came out to join in the festivities. It was a lot of fun and we were excited to see how Chunk would do!
Chunk was up for his heat and we were ready for him to show the world his skills! So check it out, we were in lane 3! I was the re-leaser and Paul was receiver
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZcFfBiqqR0&w=750&h=422]
Unfortunately, we have found that Chunk is more of a free-style runner! It was all in good fun, and I think he'll be ready next year with a bit of training... or maybe some toys or treats! Who knows, but I think it was a fun experience for all of us! Here's to an even more competitive 2013 races! :)
Storey's Birthday at Monterey's Mexican!
I hate getting behind on the blog, but I guess that's life! So this past weekend we celebrated one of my best friend's birthday's! Storey (or as I have grown to know her since 6th grade - "Kristin"), turned 31! We went out to a local Mexican restaurant called Monterey's and it was PACKED! I called ahead, but I guess Friday's are just that kind of night for them so we had to wait a VERY LONG TIME!
But in the end it was worth it as it was absolutely delicious! We enjoyed margaritas and an assortment of other drinks, great cheese dip and guacamole dip and awesome dinners! Desi and Tristan came out, so that was nice and we also got to meet a couple of Storey's friends... Rob and Saffron. It was a nice mix, and everyone definitely enjoyed the good food, drinks and conversation!
Check out some of the fun!
Afterwards we continued the fun at Ron and Saffron's with Storey, Paul and myself. We had a good time drinking chatting and stealing some great ideas for building cool patio furniture out of pavestone palettes! When we get to working on that project I will definitely be posting about that!
Anyway, Happy Birthday Storey (Kristin), we hope you enjoyed it and look forward to many more years of fun!
Elaine's 30th Birthday at 37 Main!
Last Friday we went out to 37 Main for Elaine's 30th birthday! It was a blast, we started out evening with drinks with Desi and Tristan at their place, and then headed over to 37 Main in downtown Buford!
Everyone had dinner and drinks as we impatiently awaited the performance of the 80's cover band 'The Breakfast Club' to come on. Once they were on, the party really got started and they were awesome!
Check out some pics of our fun evening!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btnGruTt98o&w=750&h=411]
Later on the party moved to the basement for dancing!
Unfortunately Paul and I had a wedding to photograph in Clayton, GA the next day, so we cut out early, but from what I hear the party was nowhere near over! I think Elaine, John, Desi, Tristan and the rest of the gang all stayed out until 6AM!
Elaine, I hope you had an awesome 30th! It seems like you guys really blew it out!
LIVE ROCK BAND KARAOKE for Shane's Birthday
Last night we celebrated Shane Cash's birthday with some good eats at Dark Horse Tavern in the Virginia Highlands, followed by some Live Band Karaoke with Metalsome at 10 High Club just below Dark Horse.
Dinner was nice with Shane, Ashley, Matt, Ruben and Kim. It was a beautiful evening and we dined on the patio... it was a nice start to the evening. Following dinner we headed down to Ten High which was actually kind of dead at 9:30/10PM. In the process we met up with Kara, Kevin and Amanda. We thought that Karaoke started at 9:30, but I guess the lack of crowd delayed the band... or maybe we were wrong about the time! Who knows, but we were ready to get this show on the road!
The band came on around 10:30! They played a few songs to get warmed up and get the crowd going and I was shocked at how many people started piling in! Paul, Shane and Amanda were our stars for the evening! Everyone else cheered them on! All three of them had sung with Metalsome before so this wasn't their first time to the stage.
Paul was up first with Bon Jovi's 'Dead or Alive!' And he killed it! I recorded each of them on my phone... would have been nice to have the 5D and a link into the sound system, but we kept it casual with the iPhone!
Check out Paul!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwmoJi5Uolg&w=750&h=538]
Shane was right after Paul with ACDC's 'Highway to Hell'! And he knocked it out! I don't think I've ever seen Shane sing like that...
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EyvTlGqeZg&w=750&h=538]
And last of our group (for the first round) was Amanda and she did AWESOME! She was definitely the best female vocalist of the evening!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZMbR0Mfu8I&w=750&h=538]
After the first round of singers, Paul and Shane stepped up to the stage to do one more song each, and blew everyone away. These videos don't do it justice!
Either way it was a blast and you should definitely check it out! I don't sing in public myself unless I've had TOO MANY drinks! But I've heard it's an exhilarating feeling to get up and sing with the band! It's not your typical karaoke, that's for sure!
Happy Birthday Shane! Thanks for a fun evening, we really enjoyed hanging with all our friends for some LIVE ROCK BAND KARAOKE!!! What a Monday night...
An Evening True to Vegas
We got back to Vegas in the afternoon, after a very long night on I-40. When we got back, we decided to stop at a discount tickets place to buy tickets to a show. While we all would have loved to have gone to a Circ show, the ones we would have been willing to splurge on were sold out. So, the consensus was to get tickets to X Burlesque at the Flamingo. It seemed like a "Vegas" thing to do!
From there we headed back to the room to regroup before our night out! The plan was to get the classic pics in front of the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Sign"...
...hit up the BEST buffet at the Bellagio of course! We got some more awesome pictures in the garden, but didn't think anyone would be interested in pictures of us pigging out!
Roll out of the Bellagio dinner buffet uncomfortably stuffed, stop for a glimpse of the famous Bellagio fountain before we head over to the Flamingo to check out the REAL flamingos in their garden and see an awesome Vegas show!
Unfortunately for you, there are no pics from the show (not allowed!), but you can check out the website and maybe just go next time you're in Vegas! For a burlesque show, it was pretty good! The guys enjoyed it, that's for sure!
We were absolutely beat after the show, and with a big day ahead of us and a long evening and day prior, we all decided it would be best to head back to the room! But we couldn't go back before we watched a full show of the Bellagio Fountain!
It was absolutely mesmerizing! I kind of wanted to save this video for the end of my Vegas series because of the song that played to the fountain, but decided to keep it real!
I hope you enjoy our video as much as we enjoyed it in person! Like Kara said before and during the trip, "I could watch that fountain every day of the trip!"
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILBmNRUQWKU&w=750&h=411]
If I had only seen it earlier in our trip... I would have been there every evening! So AWESOME!
Valentine's was Quite a Ride!
Our Valentine's Day only began with the visit to the Neon Museum, and the rest of the day was super fun! I honestly can't believe how much we actually fit into the day.
When we left the sign museum we decided to head out toward Red Rock Canyon Resort where we had heard about an awesome Mexican restaurant that had some great happy hour specials. Unfortunately with it being Valentine's Day, Happy Hour wasn't what we had hoped and we changed plans and went to BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse. I was actually surprised by the extensive menu and had trouble deciding what I wanted, they had everything from sandwiches, to pasta and pizza. They had some very nice beer options, and even had gluten-free meal, beer, and desert options!
After leaving BJ's we thought it would be nice to check out Red Rock Canyon. Unfortunately the park area was closed, but Paul was able to get a pretty nice shot from the road! That's definitely another spot I'd like to check out in more depth if and when we got back again.
Now it was back to Vegas we go! This was probably the most fun evening of our entire trip! We headed to the MGM Grand first, and found ourselves a Fat Tuesday's on the way into the Casino! We wanted to see the MGM Lion Habitat, but were disappointed to find that they had closed it a couple weeks prior. The Lions have been retired to a ranch outside of Vegas. Oh well, now onto New York New York! We took Molly's recommendation and rode the roller coaster in New York New York! It was pretty awesome!
After we left New York New York, we headed over to Ex Calibur where we met John and Elaine. Apparently they were pretty successful on the New York New York slots, so they were feeling good! And decided to get a pic with Sponge Bob... I bet Matthew will love to see that one!
We then decided to stop over at the Tropicana, and I was amazed by how nice this hotel was! It was very bright and clean, and I liked that. Of course, it did seem to attract the "Senior" crowd so we didn't stay long, but did get some cool pics on their bamboo wall! Look at these beautiful ladies!
By this time, it felt like we were just getting started, and it became a night of rides cause we headed over to the Stratosphere to hop on some rides there! I was surprised how nice the Stratosphere is considering it is an older hotel!
We all went to the top observation and John, Kara and I were all going to just hang out while Elaine, Kevin and Paul rode some rides. We got some cool videos of the experience. After it was said and done, I gave in and decided to ride the Big Shot Ride, and it was AWESOME! I can only somewhat compare it to Archophobia at Six Flags, but even crazier cause you are on top of a very tall building to start and then go up even higher! And it's crazy cause once you start to go up higher, you no longer see the building around you but just the city skyline around you! Insane!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QgYNheLbus&w=750&h=411]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4WJzyCd5Ww&w=750&h=411]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHydIS8HOmw&w=750&h=411]
That was me playing with a BIG slot machine! Too funny...
The night was starting to wind down a little, but was still not over cause after all those Fat Tuesday drinks and the excitement of the rides, we were ready for some food!!! We headed back to the mini van, had an exciting ride through the parking garage, and then headed to Peppermill for some huge meals! Luckily it's a 24 hour diner cause I think we hit it up around 2am and got some big breakfast meals and hearty sandwiches... I think every one of us had a doggy bag, and were ready to head back to the room to sleep off all that food!
Our Fremont Street Experience!
After a lot of gambling we decided it was time to experience Old Vegas and the" Fremont Street Experience." It was definitely a different side of town, but still full of lights and fun! They say this is where more of the locals go for gambling, and it definitely had that local feel in the casinos.
It was pretty awesome walking through the street covered in lights with the HUGE LCD (the largest LCD screen in the US)! There was plenty to see from the unique casino signs to the street performers. We were most entertained or in awww of the spray painter that we even bought a picture.
Stay tuned for a later post about the street artist as he was AWESOME!
Vegas Miracle Mile and Bellagio Fun!
Our first full day on the town, we checked out the Miracle Mile shops and the Bellagio. We started with lunch at Cabo Wabo, where Kara and I got ourselves some nice 32 oz. cups full of Pina Colada and Margaritas! It was super tasty!
We toured around the shops, had a few drinks here and there. Found a great option for drink refills that was less than half the price of most places, and Kevin got himself a beer at Sin City Brewing Company.
The coolest thing at Miracle Mile was the Rain storm! It literally rains in the middle of the mall every 30 minutes or so, starting with some thunder crashing and then some lightening and then the rain comes! It was pretty cool to see... essentially a glorified sprinkler system, but none the less it was pretty awesome!
From there we headed over to the Bellagio to check out the Garden, and awesome lobby with the Chihuly ceiling.
The gardens were amazing with the colorful dragons, and beautiful floral designs throughout. It was an extraordinary sight! And of course the Chihuly ceiling, and iconic horse were a site to see, and true to form of what you always see in the movies! So gorgeous!
We moved on to gambling and clearly fell into the syndrome of the casino, as we were there for a good five hours straight and totally did not feel the time pass one bit!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvBFSlpRC9w&w=750&h=411]
