Casinos and the Cardinals

Wow. November has officially kicked our butts. We are exhausted. Two weekends ago we were in Connecticut all weekend with Chuck's dad. The day he left, we drove to Virginia Beach for Thanksgiving. Now we're back in Boston and after a couple of ridiculously early bedtimes, I think we're ready to tackle December.  I'll slowly be updating the blog with our recent adventures, starting with our weekend in Connecticut.

Back in September, Chuck's dad turned the big 6-0.  As his gift, we bought him (and ourselves) a ticket to see the Louisville basketball team play UNC in a tournament at the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut in the Basketball Hall of Fame Classic.  Basically we forced his dad, (also named Chuck, so don't get confused) to come up and visit us in the Northeast!

For the weekend, the Chucks and I stayed at the Foxwoods Casino, right down the road from the Mohegan Sun. Chuck (the dad) arrived at Foxwoods on Thursday and we arrived late Friday night. Soon after we arrived on Friday night, the Chucks ventured into the Poker Room and I held down the fort in our hotel room.

Saturday we took our time getting ready and then headed over to the Mohegan Sun for Louisville's game vs. some team I already forgot the name of. We originally didn't have tickets to this game, but were able to buy them for 5 cents a piece, 2 hours before the game, on Stubhub. Yes, you read that right. FIVE. CENTS.

Louisville played like crap but ended up beating the team pretty easily. After we walked around the Mohegan Sun a little, we headed back over to Foxwoods where we relaxed a little before we had a nice dinner in one of the nice restaurants in the casino. After dinner, Chuck headed back to the poker room while Chuckie and I walked the from the Foxwoods casino to the MGM Grand and back, and did some great people watching. To illustrate how far we walked (inside, it's all connected), here's a picture of the two casinos.

 Yeah. We walked for quite a bit.

After a drink at the Hard Rock Cafe in the casino, Chuckie headed down to meet his dad in the poker room and I headed back to the hotel room to my pajamas and Kindle. Note: I'm the WORST person to take to a casino. I enjoy the restaurants, shops, decorations and people watching, but I hate the gambling. It's not that I'm against gambling, it's that I don't know how to play most games, I hate slot machines, and the one game I do know and like, roulette, takes all my money way too fast and makes me sad. I do not enjoy losing money for fun. Unless I'm losing it on horses at Churchill Downs. On Derby Day. Actually I hate losing money then too so nevermind.

I digress.

Sunday morning we got our things together, checked out of the hotel and headed to the Mohegan Sun again for some lunch and then the main event- Louisville vs. UNC.

The game was really exciting until the end when Louisville lost. Womp womp. On the up-side, we had great seats and got to see our team in person for only the second time in 2 years! We also got to see Dicky V, our old coach Denny Crum, our athletic director Tom Jurich, aaaaaand a million North Carolina fans.

On Monday, I had to work and Chuckie had class all day, so Chuck entertained himself during the day and then that night, we took him to the North End. We had a drink at the Green Dragon, one of our favorite spots in Boston, and then a good Italian dinner on Hanover Street. Unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures on Monday, so you'll just have to imagine the 3 of us doing those things.

Like with all our visitors, the weekend went by way too fast and Tuesday morning, Chuck left to fly home. After school and work, we started our (long, rainy, really long) drive to Virginia Beach for Thanksgiving! More posts coming soon....

Chattanooga

Last weekend we took a trip to Chattanooga, Tennessee that was part business, part pleasure. To give some background, Chuck and the rest of the LGO and Sloan students are right in the middle of recruitment period. This is the time of year when companies from all over the country and the world come to Sloan to recruit the students to come work for them after graduation. The students can interview for as few or as many companies as they would like. Chuck has been interviewing for a few companies, but one of the companies he already has an offer from is Amazon, where he did his internship.

Amazon has fulfillment centers (where they hold all the goodies you order so they can ship them out to you quickly when you click that beautiful, yellow "buy now" button) all over the country. If you are offered a position in the "pathways" program, you can choose which fulfillment center you would like to work for after graduation. So last weekend, Amazon flew us to Chattanooga so Chuck could check out the FC there, as he's already seen the ones around Louisville and in several other cities.

Boston sent us off to Tennessee in fashion on Thursday night!

 It works out that our best bud, Branden, lives in Chattanooga so we made a weekend out of it and got to spend some time with him as well!! Chuck had a great visit at Amazon and then we got to spend the rest of the weekend catching up with Branden and his new girlfriend/our new friend Tyler.

Unfortunately it rained the entire time we were there- Thursday night through Sunday evening- so we didn't get to do much outdoors.  We mostly ate, chilled, drank, ate some more, drank some more, and... ate. When we weren't eating or drinking, were walking the mall and waving to Santa, watching football, playing pool, or talking to a cab driver for way too long about nonsense.

Our favorite spot was Warehouse Row, an area in downtown Chattanooga with all of these brand new shops and restaurants. We went there twice- once on Friday night for happy hour at a place called The Social and the second time on Saturday morning for brunch at a place called Tupelo Honey Cafe. YUM. 

 

Branden and Tyler at the bar watching a football game before we played some pool.

 Pretty sure we got photo bombed by the guitar player...

We loved meeting all of Branden's Tennessee friends and hanging out with him and Tyler. The best thing about Branden is whether you're at a bar or just simply walking the mall, you're guaranteed a to have a good time!

Football and Modern Dance

Friday, Chuckie and I got to see Louisville play football in person for the first time in almost 2 years.  Lucky for us, they had a road game at UConn in East Hartford, Connecticut, just a little less than 2 hours from Boston! Our friends Ana and Jose came with us and fully committed to being Louisville fans for a night. The game itself wasn't the most exciting game ever and it was super cold outside but that didn't stop us from having a blast.

After dinner at a place called "Margaritas," we drove to the stadium and found parking in a field a million miles from the stadium. Not really, but it felt like it.  I couldn't get over the fact that everyone, even pass holders/season ticket holders, park in a field! It was so different from Papa John's Stadium, but in a good way.  UConn's football team may be 0-8 but their fans still tailgate as if they're 8-0. We didn't have much to tailgate with except a backpack full of beer and a little speaker for music, but really, what else do you need?

We sat in the Louisville section and met a lot of Boston residents who are UofL alums. They get together at a local restaurant for most of the football and basketball games, so I have a feeling we'll meet up with them in Boston in the future.

Ana and I took a bathroom break at one point in the night and on our way back to our seats, I spotted Mike Marra and we asked him for a picture. Although when I first saw him I think I said "Hey! You played basketball! But I can't remember your name!" I'm sure he really appreciated that. His friend told me, "I'll give you a hint- it starts with a Mike" and as soon as he said that I yelled "Mike Marra!!!!!!" So he knew I was legit.

Also please notice Ana throwing up the L. She's a really good and committed fake Cards fan and this is why I love her.

We thought the team would come over to their fans who stuck it out to the end (it was pretty cold, y'all) but only 3 players came over! And now Damian Copeland and Hakeem Smith are our favorites because they shook every fans' hand and said "Thank you for coming. Thank you for supporting us. Thank you for being here."

So that was Friday. In two weeks, we're heading to Connecticut once again, this time to see the basketball team play in a little tournament!

Saturday we switched gears and instead of Louisville clothing and football, we got dressed up and went to a dance show. Sami's BFF Ines, who you've seen on the blog HERE before,  attends the Boston Conservatory for dance and she's a-maz-ing (both at dancing and just at being a lovely, wonderful person). So Chuck and I went to see her dance in the fall showcase at the Conservatory. It was so fun to see Ines on stage and we got to meet her entire family which was fun too!

Sunday we relaxed from our busy weekend and I got myself hooked on another show on Netflix, Mad Men. Chuckie's not watching this one with me because he actually has to do some work sometimes and isn't allowing another show to distract him like Breaking Bad did. So I watch a few episodes of Mad Men and then I update him on the crazy antics of Don Draper. It was a good weekend.

This Thursday, Chuck and I are headed to Chattanooga, Tennessee so he can visit an Amazon fulfillment center (I'll explain more after the trip) and we can spend the weekend with one of our favorite friends of all time, Branden!

Liz and Shane in Boston (Part 2)

After some pad thai and a little resting on Saturday afternoon, we started to get our second wind. The LGOs were hosting a "Liquor Treat" Halloween party again this year and we decided that would be a great way for Liz and Shane to meet a lot of our friends. I had warned them about the party earlier in the week, so they came prepared with Halloween costumes. We invited a couple of people over to meet at our apartment before we all headed to the first stop on Liquor Treat and somehow that turned into more than a couple of people and we kind of had a pre-party at our house.

I went as a nerd (most of my costume I borrowed from Liz. Thank God she packed half her wardrobe in her suitcase). Chuck went as Abraham Lincoln, again. Though he was a little more casual version this year.

Liz and Shane went as pageant parents, or as her shirt says "pajent" parents.

Here's our group, minus Abe.

We saw a lot of good costumes at Liquor Treat but here are a couple of my faves.

Pot o' Gold. It's funny because her name is Gold.

Bert and Ernie, snugglin'.

We stayed out late and had greasy pizza at the place on the corner before we went home and crashed.

The next morning, we caught up on sleep because we were pretty tired and it was raining. We made some pancakes and then got ready to head out for a busy day two. Our first stop was a tour of MIT's campus. We walked from one end to the other and Chuck got to show off some cool parts of the school.

Then we played around in a classroom in the business school building because we're really mature adults like that.

Her equation (or as Shane corrected us, her "expression" because it has no equal sign) has an & sign in it. Thank goodness she teaches high school English and not math.

After some delicious lunch at Cosi, we headed into Boston to do the Freedom Trail. It was a little cold but our guide was a stand up comedian (seriously, he broke character and told us that's what he does for a living when he's not pretending to be Isaiah Thomas or William Dawes) so that made it really enjoyable despite the cold.

We then had drinks at the Green Dragon,  the pub where they supposedly planned the Boston Tea Party back in the day, and then went to the North End for a delicious Italian dinner and pastries at Mike's Pastry.  We didn't take any pictures because we suck.

Monday, Chuck had school all day so Liz, Shane and I spent the day exploring Harvard and then ventured out to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

That night, for their final night in town, we had dinner at one of our favorite Boston restaurants, Border Cafe in Harvard Square, with some friends. There were a lot of margaritas and a lot of trivia questions about Disney movies. It was a good time.

Sadly, all vacations come to an end, and after the 4 of us had brunch on Tuesday, Liz and Shane had to leave. We felt so sad when they left and had to eat a LOT of kit kat bars to subdue the pain. We wish they could come visit every weekend but of course, they can't. We had a great time while they were here and made some excellent and ridiculous memories. Best friends are the best.

Liz and Shane in Boston (Part 1)

Elizabeth and Shane didn't come into town until around midnight last Friday, so before picking them up from the airport, I attended a girls' paint night with some SOs and LGOs over in Boston. 

 

Here is what the painting was supposed to look like:

 

As you can see, we all added a little of our own creativity and some of us boycotted the birds on the wire even though I'm pretty sure the title of the painting was supposed to be "Birds over Boston" or something.

Here's mine up close:

Originally we had Liz and Shane's whole first day in Boston planned out to include the Freedom Trail, dinner in the North End, and a few other things. But after the Sox won the series and a last minute Halloween party popped up, we changed all our plans. 

So we started Saturday morning early with some coffee and cinnamon rolls and a walk across the river into Boston for the Red Sox World Series Parade. It was pretty packed.

 

Here we are, anxiously awaiting the Duck Boats carrying baseball players.

  

Chuckie got this awesome shot of the trophy.

 

Big Papi!

After the parade, it was SO NICE outside so we decided to just keep walking around the city. We walked all the way up Newbury Street, went in and out of some stores, got cupcakes, walked through the Boston Public Garden and Boston Common, and then decided to find somewhere to eat lunch.

Even George Washington was wearing a beard to support the Red Sox!

 

Liz was obsessed with this outdoor bookstore right next to where we ate lunch. It's a cool picture and I personally enjoy the leftover confetti from the parade on the ground.

Before we headed back to Cambridge, we walked through Beacon Hill and the Esplanade along the river. Everything was so Fall-like and beautiful.

I was so happy it was warm enough outside for the sailboats to be out on the river! Liz and Shane really got to experience Boston at the perfect time of year.

After we walked a million miles all day long, we ended up back at our apartment for some rest and relaxation before we got some pad thai takeout.  That night we had an impromptu Halloween party at our apartment before we all went out for Liquor Treat with all the LGOs. I'll save that for the next post. So far I've only shown you up until 4pm on Liz and Shane's first day here. We have a tendency to wear out our visitors, as you can see.